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| 0 OCT. 2 1926 
DISCOURSES, ‘ 
| Oloereat sf 


ON THE RATIONALITY OF THE 


CHRISTIAN RELIGION 


HARMONY OF ITS DOCTRINES, 


/ 
By Rev. ABIEL SILVER. 


AUTHOR OF “SYMBOLIC CHARACTER OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES,” 
AND ‘THE HOLY WORD IN ITS OWN DEFENCE.” 


“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins 
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” —ISALAH I., 18, 


BOSTON: 
HENRY H. & T. W. CARTER. 
18 70. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year'1870, by 
ABIEL SILVER, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


STEREOTYPED BY JOHN CO. REGAN & OO. 
65 Congress Street. 


PREFACE. 


—————__——_—— 


TueEsE Discourses were delivered in Brookline 
and Boston Highlands, during the winter of 
1869-70. Many who heard them asked for their 
publication. And from the fayorable influence 

- they had in leading minds to inquire into the 
spiritual sense of the Word and its true doc- 
trines, by calling their attention to the writings 
of the New Church, the author hopes they may 

continue to be serviceable in the cause for which 


} they were written. 


(iii) 


AG CARER 
[ees oh 


? —* 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 
DISCOURSE I. 
The Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. — 
IsAIAH XLIV. 6 P ¥ R Z : ‘ . 1 


DISCOURSE II. 
God’s Word to Man, and how He speaks it.—Marv. tv. 4; 
Marx iv. 34 . é é 2 ; 4 - 15 
DISCOURSE III. 
The Nature of Man, and Origin of Evil.—Gen. v. 1, 2 31 


; DISCOURSE IV. 
The Lord’s First Advent.—Marr. 1. 21 A : , 45 


DISCOURSE V. 
The Atonement and Man’s Redemption.— Luxe 1. 68 61 


DISCOURSE VI. 
The Apostolic Doctrine of the Cross.x—LUKE Ix. 23. 76 


DISCOURSE VII. 


Conversion and Regeneration.—JouN 111. 3 . - piles 91 


DISCOURSE VIII. 
The Lord’s Second Advent.—Marr. xx1v. 27... ~——:108 


DISCOURSE IX. 
The Resurrection.—Joun xi. 25, 26 . ; - : 121 


. 


(v) 


ae CONTENTS. 


DISCOURSE X. 


The Judgment.—Joun v. 22; vir. 15; xu. 48 . 4 


DISCOURSE XI. 
The Spiritual World.—Rev. xxu. 9 . ; : 


DISCOURSE XII. 
The Wars of the Scriptures.—Gmn. 1x. 6. : A 


DISCOURSE XIII. 


Punishments and their Use.—Isarau x1. 11 ‘ . 


DISCOURSE XIV. 


Prayer: its Importance and Effects.—LuxkeE x1. 9 


DISCOURSE XV. 
The Church.—LuKE xvu. 21 5 ; : A : 


DISCOURSE XVI. 


Baptism and the Holy Supper.—Lukz 11. 3; Joun vi. 53 


DISCOURSE XVII. 


True Discipleship.—Joun xvii. 23 : : . 


DISCOURSE XVIII. 


The Contrast: A brief glance at the change of mind 
from the Tri-Personal system of Faith to that of 
the New Jerusalem.—ReEv. xvi. 5; x. 7; xx1. 5. 


PAGE. 


137 


152 


168 


183 


198 


210 


226 


242 


258 


DISCOURSE I. 


THE ALMIGHTY GOD—FATHER, SON, AND HOLY 
SPIRIT. 


“Thus saith Jehovah the King of Israel and His Redeemer 
Jehovah of hosts; I am the first and I am the last; and beside 
me there is no God.”—Isa. xLIv. 6. 


THERE is but one God; one Infinite Mind. 
The first command of Godo man is, “Thou shalt 
have no other gods before me.” And it is fur- 
ther declared that the “Lord our God is one 
Lord.” One Infinite mind must be all; there can 
be nothing beyond or above it. 

And in that mind there must be a Trine of 
principles, distinct in qualities, and yet insepar- 
ably one; for there can be no mind without three 
distinct essentials. In God these Essentials are 
Love, Wisdom and Power. In that Love there is 
Good, in that Wisdom there is Truth, and in that 
Power there is Force. So that Good, Truth and 
Force is another expression of the Trine in God. 
In that Love is also spiritual Life; in that Wis- 
dom, spiritual Light ; and in that Power, spiritual 
Energy ; so that Life, Light and Energy is another 
expression of the Trinity. And it is also ex- 


(2) 


2 FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 


pressed in the Divine Will, the Divine Under- 
standing, and the Divine Activity. 

Now this Trine is what is called in the Word 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It al- 
ways existed as the One Eternal Jehovah God. 
The Love or Life is the Father principle; the 
Truth or Light is the Son principle; and the 
Power or Force is the Holy Spirit principle. 
Thus the Truth or Word is called the Son of 
God, because the Father speaks it. 


The first principle, then, in existence, is Love, 


and Love is Life — Life Infinite, substantial and 
indestructible — Life which can be neither added 
to nor diminished. And yet, which is constantly 
extending Itself into new creations and forms; 
and, as Pope says of God, it 


‘¢‘ Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.” 


This Life is the Father of everything. If a 
thing be evil, this Life is its essence, and gives it 


existence. But its influence is perverted. The 
nature of the perversion will be shown in the dis- 


course on the Fall of Man. The effect of this 
Life is seen everywhere, and in everything. It 
is the Almighty Spring which moves the uni- 
verse. 

Whenever the learned world has asked its own 
wisdom, and not God, What life is, we have 


ee Se ee ae _ 


FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 3 


heard nothing but the echo of the question.. It 
has given no reasonable idea of it. The mid- 
night oil of worldly wisdom has long since been 
exhausted in a vain search for a lucid glimpse of 
Life. But the difficulty has been that Life is 
spiritual substance ; and the learned world seems 
to have had no idea of any such thing. Men have 
not looked upon Life as something above matter, 
and yet real substance, which can be reasonably 
contemplated in the teachings of the Holy Word. 
But it is now being understood that there are two 
distinct kinds of substances, spiritual and natural, 
or mental and material; .that God, angels and 
spirits, and everything in the spiritual world, are 
of spiritual substances; that life is the highest 
spiritual substance of all, and is given by the 
Father to everything else. Hence it is declared 
that God is Life, and that He giveth life to the 
world. 

This Life is spiritual heat, and natural heat cor- 
responds to it. Natural heat, therefore, is the 
true symbol of Life; and cold, of death. This 
truth might have been suggested from the fact, 
that, as life leaves the body, the flesh becomes 
cold, All the living warmth of the body is from 
the soul. The warmth of the soul is from the 
Divine Life constantly given. Now, as Life is 
spiritual heat, it may very properly be defined 
Love. Indeed, Love is true spiritual heat. Thus 


4 FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 


the Divine Love is the warmth and Life of all 
things. Not that the tree that is alive loves. 
But the Life itself loves to make the tree grow, 
and blossom, and bear fruit ; and is the expression 
of the Omnipresent God. Love, then, is Life. 
And now we have a tangible idea of Life. We 
can experience it in the affections of the soul, and 
feel it in the warmth of the body, and thus know 
that God is with us. Then, most surely, this Life, 
this Spiritual Heat, this All-pervading Love, is the 
very manifestation of Jehovah God, the Infinite 
Father, the First Principle in existence, the mov- 
ing Impulse of the Universe. 

But this spiritual Life has other properties be- 
sides heat or Love; it has also Light or Wisdom. 
Heat without Light would be like Love without 
Wisdom, or Good without Truth. In God this 
would be impossible. Now this Light or Wisdom 
is the Second principle in existence. Not second 
as to time or substance, but only because it is the 
form or manifestation of the first. This ‘Wisdom 
is the Word of God, or is the Son, going forth 
from the Father, as the Divine Truth, to be the 
Light of men. The Light, then, is only the dis- 
tinct appearance of the Life. It is the Son bring- 
ing the Father forth to view. It is the manifesta- 
tion of Love, just as the light of the lamp is the 
manifestation of the heat. It is Love seen in its 
Wisdom, or the Father seen in the Son. Wecan- 


FATHER, SON, AND WUOLY SPIRIT. 5 


not see naked Love, but we can feel it; and the 
Truth which describes it we can understand or 
mentally see. And so we cannot see heat; we 
can feel it. But the Light which shines from it 
we can see. No man hath seen God at any time. 
The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of 
the Father, He hath manifested Him. Thus the 
Son is the Wisdom or truth of the Father, and 
the Father is the Good or Love of the Son. 

We have been treating of the eternal Trinity in 
Jehovah, without any reference to the assumed, 
finite nature of the Lord in the flesh. This we 
have done because the depraved nature was no 
part of the Divine Trinity. That fallen, finite 
nature from Mary was put off, that the Divine 
Human from Eternity might thereby be brought 
down to men for their salvation. (A. C. 2803.) 

But we have mentioned another distinct Feature 
of the Divine Being, besides the Love principle, 
or Father and the Truth principle, or Son; and 
this other feature is His Power. This Power is 
simply the active energy or Force of the Life and 
the Light, or the Father and the Son. It is the 
third expression of the living God, because it is 
the operative Power of the other two Essentials, 
and without which nothing could be done. This 
third expression is the Holy Spirit. It is not 
another substance, but the absolute Father and 
Son in action. Now this trine of Essentials is 


6 FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 


the One Eternal God of the Old Testament, who 
says, in Isaiah, “I am Jehovah, and there is none 
else ; a just God and a Saviour, there is none be- 
side me.” 

The strongest symbol, in nature, of God, is the 
Sun; the heat denoting the Father, the light the 
Son, and the power of His beams, giving growth 
to nature, the Holy Spirit. Thus the Lord, by 
analogy, is called the Sun of Righteousness.’ 
And the three Divine Essentials are inseparable. 
Without the Love or Father principle, God would 
have no feelings; without the Truth or Son prin- 
ciple, He would have no knowledge; without the 
Power or Holy Spirit principle, He would have 
no strength. 

Now, we see nothing in nature, in science, in 
philosophy, in analogy, or in Revelation, that in 
any way admits the possibility of three Gods, or 
of three Infinite Minds in one God. Our thoughts 
revolt at the idea of three Gods, three Infinite 
Beings; and ask, Can one Infinite Mind be added 
to? Would the three be any more than one? 
Of what possible use would two of them be? 
Could they know anything that the other did not 
know? Could they desire anything that the other 
did not want? Could they do anything that the 
other could not do? Three Infinite Beings! 
Where could they be located? One fills all space 
and time and eternity. Where could the other 


FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. Vi 


two be found? And how could they have inter- 
course, one with another, when there was nothing 
to communicate, and nothing to learn? How 
could one think of the others, or know that they 
existed, when thinking of them would be only 
thinking of self? How could one go towards the 
others, when there was nothing to go to, nothing 
to go for, and nowhere to go, when everything 
was within self, and from self, and that self Infi- 
nite, Omniscient, and Omnipresent? Is it not, 
then, an eternal and self-evident verity that all 
Infinity of Being is a Unit in Person, possessing 
one undivided Will, Understanding and Power? 

We have thus far said nothing about the frail, 
tempted, suffering finite human nature, seen in 
the Person of Jesus Christ on earth. We have 
left it unnoticed, because it does not belong to 
the Great Jehovah. For He who is the same yes- 
terday, to-day, and forever, could neither suffer 
nor be tempted. It was the Son of Mary, and 
was but the clothing of the Son of God within it. 
God assumed it for a certain purpose, and then 
put it off. The nature and object of this assump- 
tion will be explained in the discourses on the first 
Advent and the Atonement. 

But it must not be supposed that, in that as- 
sumption, the Great Jehovah, the Almighty God, 
was not, at the same time, everywhere, in His 
Love, Wisdom, and Power, sustaining and moving 


8 FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 


the vast universe. This He could most certainly 
do, while His omnipresent Truth, or Son, in con- 
nection with the omnipresent Love, or Father, 
was especially present within the assumed nature, 
for the purpose of bringing the Divine Influence 
more distinctly and emphatically down to men for 
their salvation. 

The human race had fallen very low in deprav- 
ity, so low that men, in many instances, had, to a 
great extent, lost their true freedom, and were 
possessed with evil spirits. In order to reach 
these spirits, and cast them out, and thus to re- 
store to man his true freedom, and teach him, by 
example and precept, the way of life, and help 
him to walk in it, God assumed humanity, clothed 
in our fallen nature, from Mary. (4641.) And as 
He therein met all the evil influences that tempt 
men, and subdued and controlled them, and thus 
redeemed man to the privilege of salvation, He 
gradually put off, from His Divine nature, all the 
depraved nature He had taken from Mary, and 
filled the natural sphere with His own self. In 
this process, He mercifully came down to our 
relief, by coming more fully out into our plane 
of life, where He could meet evil spirits, and 
hold them in check, and adapt Himself to our 
depraved capacities, so as to enable us to under- 
stand Him, and then to freely and rationally yield 
to His Spirit of Truth, resist temptations, and 


FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 9 


become regenerated. Thus He has brought His 
Eternal, Divine Humanity down within our ra- — 
tional perception and free use, as the Divine 
Truth, the Son of God, the “Word which was in 
the beginning with God,” and by whom “all things 
were made,” the “True Light” of the Gospel, 
given for our salvation. (2803.) 

Therefore, this Son of God, thus given, we 
should always remember, is the Divine Truth of 
the Word, spoken or born from the Divine Love, 
or the Father; that it is the Truth brought to our 
dark and evil states of mind, in the words, life, 
and conduct of Jesus Christ, when in the assumed 
nature on earth; and that this same Son of God 
now speaks to us in the written Gospel, as He 
then spoke in the assumed material body: and 
that though this Humanity of God, or Divine 
Truth, speaks to us in the written Word, and 
throughout all Nature; yet, that it is Divine Sub- 
stance, the Manifested God, the only Saviour and 
Redeemer, possessing “all the fulness of the God- 
head bodily.” The Almighty Father cannot be 
substantially found, or distinctly thought of, any- 
where else but in Jesus Christ. For, without 
substance and form, He is not tangible to the 
deepest thoughts, or the highest imagination of 
men or angels. 

Now this assumption of our nature, that He 
might reach us through it, is to us a most reason- 


Io FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 


able and beautiful doctrine. For man was the 
great object of the creation. And surely, He 
who made all things for man, and fills the uni- 
verse with life for man, could assume humanity, 
and speak through man’s fallen nature which had 
lost His image, if He could thereby save and 
bless man, by bringing him, in freedom, back to 
Himself. There is nothing more mysterious 
about this work than in the creation of a man, or 
a tree. Indeed, it seems to be just what the 
Merciful Father would gladly do, if He could 
thereby reach the free and rational faculties of 
His suffering children, and incline them to turn 
from their evil ways and live. 

Now, he who carefully reads the Word, with 
the above view of the Trinity in his mind, will 
find a wonderful clearness and harmony in all that 
is said of the Lord and His doings. When he 
sees it declared in the Word concerning the Lord 
that, “this is He that appeared unto the Proph- 
ets,” he will understand that the Lord is the 
Truth, and that it was the Truth that appeared 
unto the prophets,-and not the material body. 
Therefore, the prophets say, “The Word of the 
Lord came unto me, saying.” Thus the Father 
that spoke to the prophets was the same Being 
that spoke through the assumed lips of clay ; and 
the thing spoken was His Truth, or Son. And 
when one sees it stated that the Son is the ‘J udge 


FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. II 


of all the earth,” and still hears the Lord say, “I~ 
judge no man, my Word judges you,” he will see 
that the Truth is the Judge, or that the Father 
judges by His Truth. And when one sees it de- 
clared that the Son is the Mediator between man 
and the Father, he will understand that the truth 
from the Father is the Mediatorial principle be- 
tween us and Goodness, given to show us our 
evils that we may have them removed, and we be 
brought to God in new light and life. He will 
see that the Truth is the only principle between 
us and Good, whereby we can gain that Good; 
that the Truth is the Mediator, the School-master, 
to teach us the way to purity and peace, to God 
and heaven. And so, when one sees the Son 
represented as an Intercessor with the Father, 
pleading with Him, he will not think of two per- 
sons, but will see that God’s Love acts by means 
of His Wisdom; that, by His understanding, He 
knows the wants of suffering humanity, and exer- 
cises compassion ; that the Understanding is more 
external than the will, or Truth than Love; that 
Love is the Centre, and Truth the Circumference ; 
that the Son element, therefore, is between the 
Father and mankind, and is the interceding or 
mediatorial principle. Not that God is rendered 
compassionate by the Truth, for he is very Mercy 
itself. But as the Truth is the interceding prin- 
ciple between us and the Father, it may operate 


12 FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 


upon the Father element, or good ground in us, 
and bring us into states to receive His ever ready 
mercy. 7 

But while we are studying into and meditating 
upon these principles of the Divine Being, we 
should not lose sight of the fact that they are not 
attributes of a Being who is Himself something 
else; but that they are His very Self, in absolute 
Substance and Form ; that all Truths in the complex 
are the Lord as the Word, and that that complex 
of Truths is in the Human Form, and is the Divine 
Humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ containing the 
Great Jehovah in all His Fulness. This Divine 
Humanity, though infinite in substance and form, 
was in a degree manifested to finite Man, in and 
through the natural body and mind assumed of 
Mary. Through that material form the natural 
man gets a natural idea of God, which is far bet- 
ter than no substantial idea. For a God without 
substance or form is, to the highest human reason, 
simply nothing at all. Hence the Lord said to 
Philip, who was very natural in his thoughts and 
feelings, ‘‘ He that hath seen Me hath seen the Fa- 
ther.” Not that the omnipresent God was limited 
at all by the material size or capacity of that body 
of flesh. But God is Love, His Son is the Truth. 
The Truth is God manifest, and is in Human 
Form. Therefore he who sees the Truth sees 
something of the manifested Father. 


er Re a eT ee i a aioe 
Se i Nn a Nat Nae 


FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 13 


But all Truths in the complex, which are the — 
Divine Humanity in Its Infinity, no finite mind 
has ever seen, or ever will see. For the finite 
mind cannot comprehend the Infinite. But it can 
receive goods and truths from the Infinite Foun- 
tain, and from them can form limited ideas of it. 
And those limited ideas may be true, even-as to 
the Divine Form, as far as they go. An idea of 
the Divine Form as human, is given at the trans- 
figuration of our Lord, as seen by Peter, James 
and John, inthe presence of Moses and Elias. 
And though the form as there seen must have been 
finite, and seen according to the states of the be- 
holders, yet, as it was seen by a vision into the 
spiritual world, where the bodily substance of 
Moses and Elias was seen, we may safely conclude 
that something of the Divine form was seen, 
affording a finite idea of the Infinite Form as 
Human, and upon this our thoughts of a Per- 
sonal God in the Human Form may safely rest. 

We know that the natural man says, and truly, 
of the omnipresent God, that whatever is bound- 
less is formless. That is true in nature. But we 
cannot measure spiritual things by natural rules. 
There are higher laws, sibatoneas and forms than 
those of nature, wherein the Heavenly Father 
may be infinitely and substantially Human ‘in 
Form, without violating the laws of nature; so 
that the rational demands of both the natural man 


14 FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT. 


and the spiritual may be happily answered, and 
mutually harmonized. For the spiritual world, 
and all the people and things there, being of spir- 
itual substances, which are a discrete degree above 
material things, therefore they do not come under 
the rules of natural forms and measurements. 
We cannot measure an idea with a yard-stick, nor 
weigh an affection in a merchant’s balance. They 
are not governed in their movements by time and 
space, but by qualities and states. The Divine 
Truth is Human, and is the Form of the Father, 
and is measured not by extension, but by quality. 
And the Truth in Him, being Infinite, is the Inef- 
fable Expression of Perfection Itself, and is as 
complete in form in one place as in another. 
Finite man, by the Divine Influx, being progres- 
sive, may forever approach it in form and quality, 
but can never fully reach nor comprehend it. 

‘¢ Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in 
heaven. The entrance of Thy words giveth light. 
It giveth understanding to the simple.” 


DISCOURSE II. 
GOD’S WORD TO MAN, AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 


*‘ Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”—Marr. try. 4. 


3 Without a parable spake He not unto them.”—Mark 1v. 34. 


Our subject is God’s Word to man, and how He 
speaks it. 

Before we can well understand the doctrines 
which the Holy Word teaches, and their use, we 
need to be acquainted with the Elements of the 
Word and with their operation upon the human 
mind. 

And as we approach our subject, the broad idea 
is suggested that, not only the Sacred Scripture, 
but also the vast universe, is the Word of God; 
that He that made all things and fills them with 
life, must speak in them. A true suggestion. 
But in order that we may understand God’s Book 
of Nature, He-has given us an interpreter in His 
Book of Revelation. For we are therein taught 
that God is Life, that He giveth life to the world, 
and that nature speaks from that life. 

Now this fact introduces, for consideration, the 


(as) 


16 GOD'S WORD TO MAN, | 


questions of life and matter. It brings before us 
two kinds of substances, material and mental; 
and also two worlds, natural and spiritual. And 
we find them both in ourselves; material sub- 
stances for our natural bodies, and spiritual sub- 
stances for our spiritual bodies and souls. Thus 
God’s Book of Nature speaks from the spirit and 
life within it, as man’s body speaks from the spirit 
and life within 7¢. 

And so of the Written Word. As it comes to 
men in this world it is both spiritual and natural. 
Indeed, the paper, ink, and outer form of the 
words are even material. 

Now the material substances of the Bible, which 
are used to express the Word of Life, may be 
compared to the material body which the Lord 
assumed of Mary, and spoke through. But as He 
put off the material body, it being only a taber- 
nacle of clay through which He spoke, so we 
should look above the material covering of the 
Word to the things of the mind and soul. Then 
we shall see that the things of Nature and of Rev- 
elation are all Words of God which speak to us. 
And they all suggest two kinds of ideas, natural 
and spiritual. As we behold the tree it speaks 
naturally of its age, form, color, substance and 
uce. It also suggests spiritually something of its 
origin, life, Author, and their objects and quali- 
ties. And so of the Written Word. It reminds 


AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 17 


us of our earthly bodies, and of our duties and uses 
in this world; and also of our spiritual bodies and 
our souls and life, and of their heavenly duties 
and uses. Thus both the Book of Nature and the 
Book of Revelation speak to us in parables. They 
both contain a hidden meaning, higher than the 
natural speech. 

To reach this higher sense we must look up, 
by analogy, through the lower. “The invisible 
things of God, from the creation of the world,” 
we are told, are to be “seen through the things 
that are made, even His eternal power and God- 
head.” It is for this reason that the things of na- 
ture are so much used in the Holy Word. They 
represent the qualities of the thoughts and feel- 
ings that are giving them life and action, or which 
produce them. 

The Word of God, ey treats of two uni- 
verses, the spiritual and the material. The spir- 
itual universe consists of God, angels and spirits, 
of the souls of men in the flesh, of the spiritual 
sense of the Word, of all thoughts and feelings, 
and of all the elements of life in all their various 
forms and qualities, good and evil, true and false ; 
all these things are spiritual, and of spiritual sub- 
stance. The material universe consists simply of 
what science calls matter, whether in suns or 
earths, "atmospheres, odors or gases, minerals or 
vegetables, or the bodies of men or animals. 


2 


18 GODS WORD TO MAN, 


Now all material substance is entirely passive. _ 
The spiritual universe creates it, sustains it, and 
fills it with life, and acts in it. It is expressly 
designed as the primary field for the creation of 
men and angels. And life, in all its varieties, 
speaks through it. And it speaks for the edifica- 
tion of the: children of God. For the spiritual 
world is the world of minds, and nothing lives or 
moves in the world of matter, but from the exer- 
cise of wills and understandings somewhere in 
operation. 

Thus the vast Word of God, whether spoken 
through Nature, or the Sacred Scriptures, teaches, 
in every syllable, something about God, or man, 
or both, which it would be good for man to know 
and regard. Therefore, the spiritual world is the 
world of causes, and the natural world the world 
of effects; one is the world of mind, and the 
other is the world of matter. And as there can 
be no effect without its cause, so there can be 
nothing in the world of matter that does not rep- 
resent something in the world of mind. Hence 
the analogy between natural and spiritual things, 
by which the entire Word of God is written, and 
by which Nature, with her ten thousand tongues, 
is speaking to us. Therefore, the literal sense of 
the Word, through the natural things mentioned, 
corresponds to the spiritual sense. A full knowl- 


AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 19 


edge of this analogy would present the Word in- 
a perfectly harmonious and beautiful light. 

These two senses contain two kinds of thoughts 
and feelings, natural and spiritual. The natural 
thoughts and feelings are the Word in the literal 
sense, as understood by natural men. They are 
expressed in man’s language. Hence they are hu- 
man. ‘The spiritual thoughts and feclings are in 
the spiritual sense. They are expressed in God’s 
language, and are seen by analogy through the 
literal sense. Hence they are Divine. The Word, 
therefore, is Divine Human, containing both Di- 
vine and human ideas. It is Divine Truth, and 
is, therefore, the Son of God, for the Father, or 
Divine Love, speaks it. 

Truth, in all its varieties, is from God. The 
literal Truth of the Word, being expressed in 
human language, is the modified Humanity in 
which God comes down to men’s minds. It is 
filled with spirit and life, and thereby God is with 
men on earth. Through it we look up, by cor- 
respondence, to the more Essential Divine Hu- 
man, in the spiritual Truth as received by the 
angels. eG 

Now, it is only by this Human Body of Truth, 
or Son of Man, thus brought down to our minds 
in the Word and Works of God, that we can 
come to the Father. Therefore, this very Truth 
says to us, “No man cometh to the Father but by 


20 GODS WORD TO MAN, 
me.” We must receive, live, and love the Di- 
vine Law of Life, or find not heaven. In the 
spiritual life of this law, we have the Immanuel. 
If we yield our hearts to it, we receive of that 
spirit and life, and feel the presence of the Father 
in the warmth of His Love, and we love Him 
and are happy. 

Now, an external human mind, which per- 
verted the Word of Life, the Lord assumed of | 
Mary. The nature of that assumption will be 
explained in the discourse on the Lord’s First 
Advent. When the Lord assumed it, it was in- 
clined to love self and the world supremely. 
Hence its temptations. But as He put off every- 
thing He received from Mary, mental and physi- 
cal, the Divine Mind came substantially down into 
the human plane of action as Divine Truth, or 
Divine Human. Thus the Heavenly Father fills 
the Truth of the Word, which is Human, with 
Himself, and is, therein, God with us. 

But in order to truly and satisfactorily see Him 
there, in this reason-demanding age, we must see, 
by analogy, something of the Spirit and Life 
- which fills it and speaks in it, as well as in Uni- | 
versal Nature. For the general literal sense of 
the Word, in order to reach the various states of 
men, is expressed in so great a variety of forms, 
real and apparent, that it appears, in many places, 
to.the natural mind, to be utterly incomprehen- 


AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 21 


sible, and, sometimes, contradictory, and even 
absurd. 

Being the Word of God to all men, the lowest 
as well as the highest, it comes in a great variety 
of shades of character. What reaches one man’s 
state is entirely beyond the reach of another. ‘To 
some He is represented asa God of anger, wrath, 
and vengeance; to others, as pure Love and 
Mercy. | 

To some He comes as the Author of evil, say- 
ing, “Is there evil in the city, and I have not done 
it?” “I make peace, and create evil.” To oth- 
ers, the apostle says, “ By man, sin [or evil] en- 
tered into the world, and death by sin.” 

Now, to understand the reason why the Word 
is so written, we must consider well the fact that 
there are two ways of giving and receiving ideas ; 
one by realities, and the other by appearances. 
Some men see things only by appearances ; others 
look through the appearance to ‘the reality. 
There is truth as it appears, and truth as it is; 
the literal sense of the Word as it appears, and also 
as it is; nature as it appears, and nature as it is; 
God as He appears, and God as He is. And even 
these appearances are various to sundry individu- 
als, depending altogether upon the states of the ob- 
servers.: This we see from the great variety of 
sects, founding their faith upon the written, 


Word of God. The simple letter of the Word 


22 GODS WORD TO MAN, 


teaches that there is one God, who created all 
things; that in Him is a trinity of Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit; that He made all things orig- 
inally good; that man fell into depravity, and im- 
parted his sinful nature to his offspring; that, to 
save fallen man, God was manifest in the flesh, 
and opened up a way of salvation; that, in order 
to be saved, man must be regenerated; that we 
rise from the dead, and gw into the spiritual 
world, and are there judged; and are happy if 
regenerated, and unhappy if not. And in this 
instruction, the apparent and the real, the literal 
and the spiritual senses blend, making it literally 
and really true, as therein expressed. 

Now the entire Christian world once accepted 
this literal statement as true, according to the ap- 
proved literal definitions of the words; and they 
believed it for centuries. And, to a great extent, 
they do now. And yet they are divided into 
hundreds of sects, with diversities of views as to 
the doctrines taught by this statement. They un- 
derstand the statement alike by literal terms, but 
not by essential principles. Hence they disagree 
as to what is meant by the Trinity, or the Fall, or 
the Atonement, or the Advents of the Lord, or 
by Regeneration, or oe or Judgment, 
or Heaven, or Hell. 

Now, the doctrine of the Lord, treated of in 
the preceding discourse, is the great key to a true 


. 
—— 


— 


eS 


ar 


4 
; 
‘ 
Q 
‘ 
: 
: 


AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 23 


view of all the other doctrines. It throws its 
light through the entire system of theology, dis- 
tinguishing between the real and the apparent; 
and when clearly seen, in the spiritual light of 
the Word, it will bring the watchmen to “see eye 
to eye.” It is prophetically declared that the 
time will come when the watchmen will so see. 
And we hope to show satisfactorily from the 
Word, by this series of discourses, how this 
prophecy is to be fulfilled, by enabling men to 
look through appearances to the realities, and 
thereby to come into true life by purification. 

As we said above, the Holy Word is adapted to 
the states of all men. When the wicked man is 
first excited by religious influences, he feels guilty, 
and his fears are in exercise, and he sees, in the 
Word, only the lower appearances of God’s char- 
acter. Every man sees Him according to his state 
of heart; the angry man, as angry; the froward, 
as froward; the upright man, as upright; and the 
pure in heart, as pure. ‘Thus He seems to come, 
as the apostle says, “all things to all men.” 

Less than three hundred years ago, the science 
of astronomy was in the shade of appearances. 
Men everywhere believed that the sun and stars 
revolved around the earth; and theologians de- 
clared that the Bible so taught. And this was 
much better than no thought on the subject. It 
was far higher than any animal could reach. In- 


24. GODS WORD TO MAN, 


deed, though it was only an appearance, yet it: 
was, to the simple-minded, as truth, demonstrated 
by the senses. So God, in His Word, comes to 
men in appearances, with human feelings and pas- 
sions of every shade of character, from the most 
furious and wrathful, to the most mild and merci- 
ful. Thus He adapts His influences to all minds. 
He comes, to a very wicked and ignorant people, 
as a wrathful and vengeance-taking God, because 
they are a wrathful and vengeance-taking people, 
and a merciful and forgiving God could not be real- 
ized by them as consistent ; nor would He be feared 
and obeyed. Men will judge of others according 
to their own states, and therefore they must be 
met on their own plane of thought and feeling. 

The world has had its ages of benighted igno- 
rance and savage brutality; ages when eveh a 
lake of fire and brimstone, for the torment of 
wicked souls forever, could be believed in and 
trembled at. And just so far as it has restrained 
men from sin, and caused them to keep the com- 
mandments and live in peace, it has been a bless- 
ing. Dut as the age has now come when men are 
intellectually more advanced, and will not believe 
this appearance of the letter, it is necessary to 
bring out the real truth of the spiritual sense. 
Minds in that age could not bear so bright aight. 
But now mony are asking for it. 

Lhis real truth teaches that, by the literal lake, 


AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 25 


is denoted the fires of revenge and malice ina ~ 


wicked heart, which will surely torment men until 
they get rid of their evil loves, by breaking off 
from sin by righteousness. But men ask whether 
this is not teaching that God is practising decep- 
tion in His Word. We reply that when the 
Scriptures are seen in the light of correspondence 
between the literal and spiritual senses, everything 
like falsity or deception vanishes. Even in the 
letter alone it is not a falsity that the sun appears 
to revolve around the earth; or that the colors we 
see appear to be in the things presented, and not 
in the light they reflect. These appearances are 
truths to a mind that looks no higher; and so the 
Word of God and the universal language of men 
speak of them. All men must severally think 
and judge of God, not as He is in His Infinity, 
for so they cannot see Him, but only as He comes 
to their states in His Word and works. <A wicked 
man, therefore, sees Him in apparent light, threat- 
ening to punish thieves and murderers for break- 
ing His law, just as he himself would do to them, 
if they trespassed against him. He looks upon 
the law as just. And when circumstances bring 
him under the influence of God’s spirit, he 1s 
afraid to break the law. And hence he can begin 
the work of repentance and reformation, when 
otherwise he could not be reached. 

Now throughout the entire Word and works 


\ 


26 GODS WORD TO MAN, 


of God, there are everywhere two senses: the 
spiritual and the natural, the real and the ap- 
parent. The untutored savage, standing, as he 
supposes, on the flat earth, sees the lamps of 
heaven revolving around him, while an entirely 
different scene is passing before the mind of the 
astronomer. The first is a natural scene, viewed 
with the eyes of the body in natural light. The 
second is a mental scene, viewed with the eye of 
the mind in the light of science. 

If, then, the two scenes, in God’s Book of Na- 
ture, are so completely unlike in aspect, magni- 
tude and fact; if the view becomes so vastly 
changed in beauty and grandeur, by the aid only 
of natural science ; what must be the change in 
God’s Book of Revelation, when, by analogy, we 
look through the cloud of appearances, and view 
it in the pure light of spiritual science, the science 
of souls, minds, thoughts and feelings; when the 
goods and truths of heaven are harmonizing and 
beautifying the entire Word. | 

We get abroad and comprehensive glance at 
the character of the language of the Divine Word, 
when we consider that the spiritual sense relates 
entirely to things of the mind; to the qualities, 
thoughts and feelings of God, angels, spirits and 
men; and that the literal sense, in all the natural 
things mentioned, corresponds to spiritual things ; 
that the natural things must denote things in God, 


AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 24 


for He made them; and also things in man, for 
He made man in His own image. ' 
Now, human language on earth is an external ex- 
pression of thoughts and feelings in words and 
actions in this natural world. And the things of 
nature, which are all ultimate expressions of 
thoughts and feelings, constitute the basis of all 
external language. Hence the Word says of the 
things of this world, “There is no speech nor 
language, where their voice is not heard.” And 
here we state that all written language must be 
taken from Nature. We cannot express the 
quality or character of an idea or of an affection, 
but by analogy, through the quality or character 
of a natural thing. Hence we calla man a dog 
or a star, or a fox, or a serpent; we say he is 
wolfish, or crusty, or sharp, rough, hard or smooth. 
Take the whole variety of adjectives by which we 
describe the quality of spiritual or mental things : 
bitter, sweet, sour, warm, cold, long, short, high, 
low, dark, light, near, distant, black, white, and 
soon. They are all from nature. But we are 
obliged to use them to describe the states and 
qualitics of the mind. We speak of a warm or 
cold heart, a sweet or sour disposition, high or 
low spirits, a cloudy intellect, a black character, 
a distant relative, a knotty subject, and so forth. 
And not only adjectives relating to natural 
things are, in all languages, used to express the 


\ 


- 


28 GOD'S WORD TO MAN, 


qualities of spiritual things, but, in the Word of 
God, nouns, the names of natural things, are con- 
stantly mentioned to express things of the mind. 
The sun, moon, ‘stars, winds, clouds, hail, snow, 
rain, ice, frost, fire, light, darkness, storms, thun- 
ders, earthquakes, flood, droughts, mountains, 
hills, valleys, seas, rivers — everything inanimate ; 
beasts, birds, fishes, insects, reptiles — everything 
that flies, creeps, walks, swims, or crawls; trees, 
briers, brambles, rye, wheat, barley, corn — 
everything that grows upon the earth; gold, silver, 
copper, brass, iron, lead, precious stones, rocks, 
clay, sand— everything in the earth, and even the 
earth itself; all these things are mentioned in the 
Word as denoting things of the mind, and are 
expressed to teach man something about his God, 
himself, or the way of life; for “all Scripture is 
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
in righteousness.” And what is remarkable, all 
these things are mentioned as living and rational 
creatures —the floods clapping their hands, the 
hills rejoicing, the mountains moving about, the 
hills skipping like young sheep, the valleys laugh- 
ing and singing, the earth reeling to and fro like 
a drunken man; every thing that hath breath 
praising the Lord ; and God entering into covenant 
with the beasts of the field and the creeping things 
of the earth. Now all this is said simply because 


ee a ey 


AND HOW HE SPEAKS IT. 29 


these things correspond to principles in man; so 
that it is man that reels to and fro, man that 
praises God by every living principle of his na- 
ture, man with whom God enters into covenant, 
man that shouts and sings, principles in man that 
skip like young sheep, mountains in man that 
are moved. Such is the Divine Word. It is the 
language of God in the language of men and na- 
ture. And thereby the wise man reads himself, 
not only in the Word, but also in the works of 
his heavenly Father. The ancients called the 
human mind a AWicrocosm, or little world, because 
the Macrocosm, or natural world, was a symbol 
of it. 

The three great distinctions are: First, God; 
second, Man; third, Nature. Man is the one 
conspicuous object of the creation. For the ten- 
dency of every thing in God and nature is to 
make man. All things below man are but the 
means for his education, sustenance and use. 
They are filled with life from God, and that life is 
human, for God’s love and wisdom are in it. But 
it does not make them human, because they have 
no rationality and freedom. They have no organic 
wills and understandings, rationally and affec- 
tionately to receive that life and thereby know 
and love their God, and thus be immortal. But 
still the laws of the Divine influx carry the vari- 
ous qualities of men down into the things of na- 


20 GOD'S WORD TO MAN, ETC. 


ture, so that they correspond to principles in men. 
Nature, therefore, is a great Book, wherein the 
man that is truly wise reads himself. In the 
poisonous and disorderly things, he sees the effects 
of his evils. For, until man’s depravity passed 
with the stream of life down into nature, all was 
orderly; without thorn or thistle, mildew or 
blight. Hence the things of nature, as they are 
constantly brought forward in the Holy Word, 
teach us important lessons. 

Such is God’s Word, and so it speaks. And 
no man can rationally study it, in the science of 


correspondence as now revealed, applying the © 


truth he sees to life, without becoming decidedly 
convinced that He who created the universe, gave 
us also the written Word. 

«¢ And now, O God of Israel, let Thy Word, I 
pray Thee, be verified.”—-[1 Kings, vill. 26.] 


ee ee ee 


ie Di ns le 


_ eee a, es es 


DISCOURSE III. 


THE NATURE OF MAN, AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 


“In the likeness of God made He him. Male and female 
created He them; and called their name Adam, in the day when 
they were created.”—GeEn. v. l, 2. 


THe preceding lectures bring before us the 
Almighty Creator of the universe as one Sub- 
stantial Being, in a Trinity of Infinite Love, Wis- 
dom, and Power. 

Now what must be the first and the last, and the 
constant, great, eternal impulse and object of such 
a Being? It must be to produce intelligent be- 
ings whom He can, as a heavenly Father, forever 
bless and make happy ; beings whose wills He can 
fill with His goodness and their understandings 
with his truth, and thus conjoin them to Himself 
by the eternal elements of His being; so that they 
can know Him and love Him as a Father, and be 
enabled to progress towards Him in increasing 
wisdom and love forever— He their Infinite, loving 
Parent, and they His finite, affectionate children. 
From all that we can draw from His Word and 
works, we can rationally come to no other con- 
clusion. Tor every living thing He creates is in 


(31) 


32 THE NATURE OF MAN, 


effort to produce its kind. And this effort is from 
the very life He gives it. Hence we must con- 
clude that the one eternal impulse of His nature 
is to reproduce Himself as far as it is possible for 
the finite to be made to approach the Infinite. We 
know the Infinite itself cannot be reproduced, be- 
cause one Infinite is all, and All in all; and it is 
a self-evident axiom that infinity cannot be in- 
creased nor created. 

The word Adam means Man, or Mankind. It is 
the Hebrew name for the race. Thus the text 
says, Male and female created He them, and called 
their name Adam, or Man. Now what must be 
the character and qualities of this creature man, 
in order that he may possess God’s image and like- 
ness, freely know Him and love Him, and pro-. 
gress towards Him forever? He must be so con- 
stituted as to have it appear to him distinctly that 
his life and power are his own; that he lives in 
and of himself, and can manage his own outward 
affairs, as well as his thoughts and feelings; and 
can therefore do as he pleases, love or hate, be kind 
or unkind at will. Without this appearance, man 
would have no conscious, independent individ- 
uality, and therefore he could not enjoy friendship 
nor heavenly love. For the sweets of such love 
can be tasted only in the free exercise of a soul 
that feels and enjoys true freedom. Man there- 
fore had to be endowed with two important 


AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 223 


elements, given him as his own, whereby he could 
feel, think and act as he pleased. These elements 
are Freedom and Rationality. They elevate him 
above machinery and the beasts that perish, make 
him responsible for his conduct, capable of know- 
ing and loving his God, and of progressing in 
science and knowledge, and in goodness and truth. 
And though, from the very nature of these endow- 
ments, man may abuse them and become de- 
praved, yet they are positive necessities of his 
being asaman. And the capability of abusing 
them and falling into evil exists in the capability 
of rightly using them and rising into heavenly 
knowledge and happiness. In the freedom and 
ability to do right are necessarily involved the 
freedom and ability to do wrong. But no man is 
obliged to do what he knows to be wrong. In 
the truth by which he sees the wrong, God gives 
him the power to resist the temptation and do 
right, if he will look to Him and make the effort, 
which he is free to do. Man was not obliged to 
fall. God did not desire him to fall, for He com- 
manded him not to eat of the knowledge of evil; 
or, in other words, not to practise evil, and thus 
gain a knowledge and love of it. God even told 
him that if he did eat of it he would surely die. 
The forbidden fruit was the same as is now for- 
bidden in the Decalogue. Nor did man intend to 
3 


34 THE NATURE OF MAN. 


fall. God gave him no depraved taste or ten- 
dency ; for He had nothing of the kind to give. 

God gave him rationality to compute and com- 
pare, freedom to act as he might decide, and a de- 
sire for knowledge. Without these faculties, he 
would have been a machine, and incapable of hu- 
man progress. In the exercise of his curiosity to 
know new things, he gradually overreached the 
line of virtue and justice, without at first being 
aware that he was really diverging from the course 
of truth and righteousness. 

The people were then in their youth, full of life 
and action, with everything to learn and a desire 
to know everything, with no historic paths or 
beaten tracks; no pictures of vice to warn them 
of their danger, nor examples of depravity to show 
them their faults.. They were in the image and 
likeness of their heavenly Father. 

Their pleasant state of mind is symbolized, in 
the Word, as a garden—the Garden of Eden. 
This garden of the mind they were to dress and 
keep; and allow no thorns or thistles of vice to 
grow there. Out of the good ground of their 
minds the Lord God had caused to grow trees or 
principles pleasant to the sight and good for food. 
God Himself was the Tree of Life in the midst 
of that garden. In Proverbs it is written, “ Right- 
eousness is the Tree of Life”; and again, * Wis- 


dem is the Tree of Life.” This righteousness 


4 
| 
; 


AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 35 


and wisdom are goodness and truth, which were 
God Himself in the minds of that people. 

There was then no evil in existence. Man had 
not fallen. There was one tree of the mind of 
which man was forbidden: to eat—the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil. It was man’s own 
Selfhood; the essence of which was his freedom 
and rationality. It was that God-given ability 
which elevated him above machinery, and made 
him capable of progress. It was therefore a 
good tree of God’s own planting. All that was 
necessary for man’s true progress was that he 
should not eat of the tree’ of his own selfhood, 
but go to the Tree of Life—he was to go to 
God, and not to himself, for wisdom and right- 
eousness. 

The soul as well as the body lives by eating and 
drinking. Goods and truths are the proper sub- 
stances of life, and God is the tree that bears 
them. And when we thankfully receive and af- 
fectionately give those goods and truths, we are 
living on angels’ food. The fruit of. the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil has been clearly de- 
scribed in all the prohibitory laws, so. that man 
need not mistake it. Stealing, lying, murder, 
adultery, covetousness; everything evil and false 
comes from that tree, and should not be eaten. 
There is no evil in existence that has not sprung 
from the abuse of man’s selfhood. It is called 


36 THE NATURE OF MAN, 


the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because 
when man loves it he calls it good. And to eat 
of it is to indulge in evil habits until he loves 
them. Then they are what he calls good; and thus 
in the language of Scripture, he says to himself as he 
indulges, “Evil be thou my good.” Man’s selfhood 
was called the tree of knowledge because it was 
the endowment by which he could gain knowl- 
edge. It was called the tree of knowledge of 
good and evil because he could thereby gain a 
knowledge either of good or of evil. 

When the tree of man’s selfhood is allowed to 
run wild, extending its branches out into forbidden 
places, and bears thereby the fruit of transgres- 
sion, and men thus eat of the knowledge of evil 
and call. it good, they become wise in their own 
eyes, fall in love with themselves: and, as the ser- 
pent said to the woman, they became to them- 
selves as gods, knowing good and evil. Thus 
man fell. The fall was from the love of good to 
the love of evil; which gave him a depraved na- 
ture. And this depravity he imparted to his pos- 
terity. And, once out of the true way of life, 
the human race went on, entailing their depravity 
upon their offspring, and they upon theirs, and so 
on until the human family had fallen into extreme 
excesses of evil. Thus man died unto righteous- 
ness and become alive unto sin. 

The principle of his nature which first got out 


AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. a 


of the way, in this fall, was the appetites of body 
and mind. ‘These appetites are the serpent-prin- 
ple of man’s nature. That serpent, though at the 
creation of man it was called more subtle than all 
the principles of the mind that God had made, 
yet it was then pronounced good, very good. All 
the appetites were then chaste and pure. Indeed, 
everything in existence was good. For it is 
written, that “God saw everything that He had 
made, and, behold, it was very good.” Now we 
all know that a man may, by habit, vitiate his 
appetites of body and mind and thus render 
them morbid, voracious and unnatural. He may 
even obtain a destructive relish for poisons di- 
rectly opposed to his life; and this, too, where no 
love of them had been implanted in his nature by 
his heavenly Father, or even inherited from his 
natural parents,— such as an insane and ungovern- 
able appetite for opium. Precisely so could the 
people of the primeval age, without any inherent 
tendencies to evil, obtain a relish, by habit, for 
that which was destructive of their orderly life and 
true happiness. And when the serpent-principle 
becomes contaminated and headstrong, it draws 
down the higher principles. For a simple illus- 
tration: take the wild opium-eater who is out of 
the drug; the voracious appetite loudly demands. 
its accustomed stimulant. The love of selfand self- 
gratification — the very head of the serpent -—is de- 


& 


38 THE NATURE OF MAN, 


termined to have it at any cost. But the circum- 
stances are such that it cannot be obtained with- 
out stealing it. The better judgment sees the 
injustice of theft; but the serpent’s demands are 
imperious, and the judgment finally yields. The 
Divine command is broken. The soul has eaten 
of the forbidden fruit. Man has stolen. The 
serpent beguiled the will, and the will gave to the 
understanding, and man fell. The next time the 
Jaw will be broken more easily. Thus he yields 
to the bite of the serpent whose tooth he had poi- 
soned by permitting it to run wild when he might 
have controlled it. In this way man gradually 
loses the love of justice and righteousness, and 
obtains the love of evil. 

This love of evil is the devil. It is what is 
meant by the devil in Scripture. It exists no- 
where else but in the hearts of bad people. It is 
nothing of God’s producing. He could not give 
forth anything of the kind; for He has nothing 
like it in His nature. Therefore, this love of 
evil, gradually brought on by vitiating the orderly 
demands of body and mind, is what is meant by 
that “old serpent, the devil, who, as a roaring 


lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may de- 


vour.” And is not the love of evil the great 
enemy of mankind? What crime was ever com- 
mitted that this love did not do? Look at the 
wretch in human form, with this love of evil in 


Se ee a ee ee a er ee 


AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 39 


the midst of his depraved and morbid appetites 
of mind and body. What else have we so much 
to fear? Is he not a blight upon everything he 
touches? 

These serpents of the human heart are the evils 
to which the Saviour alludes when He says He will 
give His disciples “ power to tread upon serpents 
and scorpions, and over all the power of the 
enemy.” Paul to the Corinthians says, “I fear lest 
....as the serpent beguiled Eve through his sub- 
tlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the 
simplicity that is in Christ.” Here Paul is afraid 
that the minds of his disciples will be corrupted as 
the serpent beguiled Eve, or in the same way that 
she was beguiled. Now, this is proof positive 
that Paul did not suppose that any natural serpent 
tempted Eve. For it cannot be believed that 
Paul was afraid that the snakes of this earth 
would lead his disciples into sin. No. It was 
their sinful desires to gratify the wayward de- 
mands of the heart that Paul was afraid of. 

Thus, immediately after the fall, the Saviour 
was promised to bruise the serpent’s head. ‘This 
was the great work of His mission. _And yet it 
is nowhere recorded that He killed a natural. 
serpent. When He came in the flesh, the ser- 
pent-principle ruled on earth. Christ came to- 
destroy the works of the devil, or serpent, in the 
human heart. Where the serpent rules, . the 


40 THE NATURE OF MAN, 


whole mind is in disorder. Where Christ rules, 
all is happiness and peace. 

True, it has long been believed that there was 
a great personal devil, who, in the form of a ser- 
pent, tempted the first people to sin. But it 
should not be overlooked that the serpent which 
tempted them is declared in Scripture to be the 
identical serpent which God had created, and 
which, with everything else, He pronounced good. 
Thus, no devil, no hell was created; nothing but 
what. was good. Indeed, nothing but what was 
good end true could come from the heavenly 
Father. 

It has been further supposed that the devil was 
a fallen angel, from heaven. But it is revolting 
to both the head and the heart to admit the idea 
that the heavenly abode of the righteous is the 
region from which devils are produced, and I do 
not know that anybody now believes it. There 
ts nothing in the Bible that teaches any such 
thing. The doctrine of fallen angels has been 
principally drawn from the twelfth chapter of 
Revelation; the result of the war between Mi- 
chael and the dragon. But this whole chapter is 
a beautiful allegory, containing useful instruction 
to be understood by the spiritual sense. It seems 
very strange that men should have supposed that 
a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten 
horns, and seven crowns upon his heads, and 


AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 41 


which was prophetically seen in vision by John to 
be cast out of the heaven of human minds as men 
should be regenerated, and even many thousands 
of years after the fall took place—I say, it scems 
strange that men have believed that this dragon 
was the serpent that tempted Evea The whole 
Apocalypse is a prophecy of things that were to 
take place after the work was written. John says 
they are things that “must shortly come to pass.” 
We must then go back to the Old Testament for 
the fallen angel, as the devil. Now, the word 
devil is not used in the entire Old Testament. 
The first time it occurs in the Bible is in the 4th 
chapter of Matthew. The word devils occurs 
four times in the Old Testament; but only as 
men’s sacrificing unto devils ; meaning unto evil 
loves. In Isa. xiv. it is written, “How art thou’ 
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morn- 
ing, how art thou cut down to the ground... 
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend 
into heaven; I will be like the Most High.” But 
we here see that he had never been in heaven; 
but fell because he aspired, in his self-wisdom, to 
be equal with God. He fell only from his own 
imaginary heaven, as Adam fell, and all others 
who become-wise in their own eyes. The Lord 
says, in Luke (x.), “I beheld Satan as lightning 
fall from heaven”; and He then explains by say- 
ing,“ Behold I give you power to tread upon ser- 


42 THE NATURE OF MAN, 


pents and scorpions, and over all the power of 
the enemy”; thus teaching that Satan, as false 
light, departs from the imaginary heaven of the 
mind, as we keep down the serpents of the heart. 
We have now mentioned all that the Bible says in 
the letter upen the subject of fallen angels, or the 
origin of evil; and it fails to produce the least 
evidence that an angel of the heavenly abode ever 
fell and became a devil on earth. Milton’s “ Par- 
adise Lost,” and not the Word of God, is what 
has impressed men with the idea of the devil as 
a fallen angel: a great mistake. The phrase 
“the devil,” means simply the love of evil. 

The fall of man gradually engendered the love 
of self; and as this love increased, love to God 
diminished, until man loved himself supremely. 
This selflove led him into covetousness, deceit, 
theft, murder, and all crimes for the sake of self, 
and self-gratification; which filled him with the 
love of evil, or with the devil. Therefore, this 
love of evil did not exist before the fall; conse- 
quently there was no devil. How could there be 
a love of evil before there was any evil to love, or 
any desire to love it, or even any thought or 
knowledge of it? Evil and the love of evil are, 
in their essence, inseparable; and they came into 
existence together. They are perverted states and 
principles of the human heart. They were intro- 
duced by man through the abuse of his selfhood ; 


AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 43 


through the improper use of those principles of 


his nature by which he could become an angel, .— 


and forever advance towards his heavenly Father. 

Now, this is the only view of the fall, or of the 
origin of evil, that sustains the pure character of 
God, or does not make Him the direct author 
of all sin and misery, and man an irresponsible 
machine, utterly incapable of-heavenly enjoyment. 

Thus the way of life is fairly open before us. 
The whole work on our part is, in the spirit of the 
Lord, to bruise the serpent’s head, or destroy in 
us the love of evil. This is done by resisting 
temptations, and shunning their allurements as sins 
against God. Then God will lead us in the path 
of life. In this way we break off from sin by 
righteousness. Are we inclined to deception or 
hypocrisy? It is the serpent’s call. His head 
must be bruised. Do we sometimes feel angry or 
unkind? It is from the vile spirit of the serpent. 
His head must be bruised. Do our thoughts ever 
run in impure channels? The serpent is there. 
Much may be done by governing the action of our 
thoughts. Few people are aware of the fact that 
they have the control of their thoughts; and tha 
if they govern their thoughts, they will commit no 
sin. If we take care of our thoughts, the Lord 
will take care of our hearts. Do we neglect the 
Holy Word and our dependence upon the Lord? 
The serpent is surely beguiling us. 


44 THE NATURE OF MAN, ETC. 


Let us, then, forget not that the deadly poison 
of the serpent is the “s7n of the world,” which the 
Saviour came to take away; and that this can be 
done only as each individual bruises the serpent’s 
head in his own heart, through the ever offered 
spirit of Jesus Christ. These serpents of the 
heart try to keep in their holes from the public 
eye. The time to bruise their heads is when they 
come out, exciting deceit, lewdness, covetous- 
ness, anger or malice. We should then look to 
the Lord, stop their action, and tread them under 
foot. If we let them go on and bite our neighbor, 
they will sting us; and the sting is worse than 
the bite. <‘* Let him that thinketh he standeth 
take heed lest he fall.” 


DISCOURSE IV. 
THE LORD’S FIRST ADVENT. 


‘‘And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His 
name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins.”— 
Mart. 1. 21. 


Tuts is the declaration of the angel to Joseph. 
And it is further written that “she brought forth 
her first-born son, and wrapped Him in swaddling 
clothes and laid Him in a manger.” 

The literal sense of this Scripture is fully veri- 
fied in the Word, while the spiritual sense fills it 
with life and. confirms it. For nothing is more 
definitely declared in prophecy than the coming 
of the Lord in the flesh. Thus it is written in 
Isaiah (vii. 14), “Behold a virgin shall conceive 
and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel ” 
— God with us. And again, “Unto us a child is 
born, unto us a son is given, and the government 
shall be upon His shoulder ; and His name shall be 
ealled Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, 
the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” 

Now we would here ask any free-thinking mind 
to look impartially at such prophecies, and also at 


(45) 


46 THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 


their specific fulfilment; and then ask himself 
rationally, From what but a Divine source could 
such knowledge have come? We call attention 
particularly to this, because the doctrine of the 
Divine Incarnation is the great leading theolog- 
ical question of the day; and becatise, upon this 
question, the Christian world is sincerely divided 
in sentiment and faith, and therefore light is 
needed; and further, because upon the decision 
to which men come in this matter depends, ina 
great measure, the character of their religion of 
life. 

True, the literal birth of the child Jesus and the 
life of Christ on earth, do not satisfy those who 
look only to the literal sense of the narrative. 
To them, the prophecy does not seem to be ful- 
filled ; for it declares that Christ would establish 
His kingdom on earth as an everlasting Father, 
the Prince of peace; and that of the “increase of 
His government and peace there shall be no end, 
upon the throne of David and upon his king- 
dom, to order it and to establish it with justice 
and with judgment, from henceforth even for- 
ever.” This prophecy, they say, has not been ful- 
filled ; that Jesus never reigned on the earth asa 
civil Prince; that the throne of David failed ; that 
Christ was crucified, and His apostles were mur- 
dered; that His disciples were persecuted and 


EO ————— 


THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 47 


divided, and have now their hundreds of diversi- 
fied sects and creeds. 

All this is true as appears in the letter of the 
Gospel, and the history of the Church. And yet 
the Lord did come 1870 years ago, according to 
prophecy, and established His kingdom in the 
hearts and minds of His disciples; and He said 
expressly, “My kingdom is not of this world.” 
It is a spiritual kingdom, and extends also into 
the spiritual world. It is a government over 
thoughts and feelings by the power of the Truth. 
And much the larger portion of the human family, 
since its establishment, are in that kingdom. All 
that have died in infancy and childhood are there; 
which is more than half of the race for the time. 
And all in this world who accept the Divine truth 
as king, and obey it, loving God and the neigh- 
bor, are there now in spirit. Thus He did literally 
come as the everlasting Father, and establish His 
kingdom of mercy and Truth in the souls of all who 
would receive Him. And that kingdom has been 
rapidly increasing ever since, gathering its mem- 
bers from all nations and kindreds and tongues 
and peoples. All who have obeyed the light they 
had, whether civilized or savage, Christian or 
heathen —all who have let the truth they had be 
king, and have lived up to it as well as they could, 
however dim that truth may have been, have gone 
into the kingdom of heaven. And all, every- 


48 THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 


where, who are so yielding to it now, are prepar- 
ing for that kingdom. Thus we may see that of 
the increase of His government and peace there 
shall be no end, to order it and to establish it 
with judgment and with justice, from henceforth 
even forever. And it must continue until it em- 
braces the whole earth. “The zeal of the Lord 
of Hosts shall perform this.” 

Now, we look upon the Divine incarnation as 
an absolute necessity. We believe the human 
race would have perished without it. And those 
who heard and understood the preceding dis- 
courses of this series, must see that necessity. 
Those who understand what is there said of God 
and of His Word, of human freedom, and the 
origin of evil, and the process of the fall of man, 
already see that, in order to reach man as a free 
being, when in the greatest darkness and de- 
-pravity, the Merciful Father had to come down 
into man’s nature, and act through it. Had men 
been machines, with no freedom, no distinct in- 
dividuality and reasoning faculties, God could, of 
course, have moved them along in perfect order, 
as He moves the rolling worlds. But they would 
have been mere passive, unprogressive, irresponsi- 
ble beings, incapable of rational enjoyment and free 
delight. And what would have been the use of a 
few years of automaton life, and then utter ex- 


a 


ee ee OR ee Pe Se eS ee 


= a a nti, 


THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 49 


tinction? No: man was made to grow, and, 
therefore, he was made free to grow. | 
In his highest primeval condition before the 
fall, man was in the regenerate state. He was in 
the image and likeness of God, and in conscious 
connection with Him. He freely acted in the cur- 
rent of Divine goodness and truth. He was a 
celestial man; and as he knew no evil, he saw 
spiritual things intuitively in the light of Divine 
wisdom. But God had given him a selfhood of 
rationality and freedom, which elevated him above 
machinery, and made him capable of progressing 
in science and knowledge, both natural and spir- 
itual. And although all his life and light and 
powers of action were given from God, yet his 
selfhood necessarily made it appear to him as 
though his life and ability were all his own. And 
so, from our selfhood, it now appears to us. It 
does not seem to us as though our life and power 
to act were constantly given us; but, on the con- 
trary, as though they were innate elements of our 
being. And as it so appeared to the primeval 
people of our race when all was good, they gradu- 
ally, by habit, turned their thoughts and feelings 
away from the Lord, and from spiritual things, 
toward themselves and natural things. Spiritual 
things became less and less interesting, and more 
and more dim and obscure, until, in the lapse of 
time and generations, the spiritual degree of their 
4 


50 THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 


minds became closed, and they were entirely nat- 
ural. Thus men lost all rational ideas of spiritual 
substances and forms; and so they went on until 
they got so low that God could no longer reach 
their wills and understandings, so as, in their 
freedom, to elevate them, without assuming our 
nature, and appearing before them as a Man like 


themselves. Not that He was sucha Man. But 


so He appeared, for He had a material body and 
a depraved nature from Mary, which were be- 
tween His Divinity and mankind, and through 
which He could reach them. 

God could not have prevented their so falling 


without overruling or taking away from them their - 


freedom and selfhood, which would have destroyed 
them as men. He mercifully followed them with 
the law, the prophecies, and the angels; and was 
all the ttme helping and saving all who would yield 
to the truth and obey it. And when they had 
fallen to the very omega of humanity, and could 
not be otherwise reached in their freedom, when 
there was no arm to save, then the merciful Fa- 
ther came down to the rescue. This view of man’s 
nature, and of the fall, must be understood before 
the necessity of the incarnation can be. seen, and 
its importance appreciated. 

- Now let us try to get a rational idea of the in- 
carnation, though it can be but a very faint one. 
While in the flesh, we hear the Lord saying, 


a a 


maf = Deane ™ ei 


THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 51 


“Now, O Father, glorify me with thine own self, 


with the glory which I had with Thee before the. — 


world was.” To understand this, we must con- 
sider that there were two minds in the person of 
Jesus Christ on earth—a Divine and a human. 
And one of these minds seemed finite and inglo- 
rious, asking for help; and the other was infinite, 
and capable of glorifying the Son with His own 
self, with the glory which the Son had with the 
Father before the world was. So the literal sense 
of the Word seems to man, in his fallen natural 
state, to be inglorious and contradictory ; but the 
spiritual sense gives it the glory of the Father, 
harmonizing and beautifying all its parts, and 
making it Divine Human. 

But how is it possible that two minds can exist 
in one person, one mind inglorious and depraved, 
and the other Almighty and pure? In order to 
get a rational idea of the two minds in the person 
of the Lord on earth, we must understand the or- 
ganization of our own minds. We can obtain a 
knowledge of higher things only by analogy 
through lower. And if we look rationally into 
our own minds, and their laws and operations, 
and into what the Holy Word teaches concerning 
us, we shall see that we have two minds. In- 
deed, every person who is trying to control his 
selfish nature may surely see, if he will look at 
himself, that he has two minds—two wills and 


52 THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 


two understandings. Thus it is that he some- 
times finds himself halting between two opinions. 
One mind inclines him to do something, and the 
other cautions him against it. His higher mind 
may consider the subject, and decide that the 
thoughts and feelings of the lower mind were 
wrong in their intentions and desires. Now, the 
mind that thus sits in judgment is not the mind 
that was tempted. The same will cannot be thus 
vacillating, —virtuous one hour, and vicious the 
next. These two minds are called in Scripture 
the spiritual man or mind, and the natural man or 
mind. ‘They are also called the internal man and 
the external man. But we must always be care- 
ful not to mistake the material body for the exter- 
nal man. We should leave that body entirely 
out of sight, for it is no part of the real man, 
but only the tabernacle of clay which he lives in. 

Now, we are first brought into the world in- 
fants, without either an internal mind, or an ex- 
ternal, of which we are conscious. We have 
planes of the mind with wills and understandings, 
as mere vessels receptive of goods and truths 
from the Lord, for the formation of minds when- 
ever we are able to receive and use those goods 
and truths; and the external mind of an infant is 
just beginning to be formed, as it is moved to ac- 
tion through the senses, by means of life con- 
stantly given it by the Lord. Hence it is a 


THE LORD'S FIRST ADVENT. 53 


natural mind connected with the material body 
and the world. Here seems to be the source of 
all its knowledge and wants. Here is its world. 
Here centre all its affections and thoughts. And 
it can have no higher aspirations until it has been 
taught spiritual things, and begins to love them. 
This is effectually done by regeneration, which 
opens the spiritual plane of the mind, and brings 
into action the higher will and understanding. 
Thus we see that we are first created natural, and 
afterwards recreated and made spiritual. Hence 
this work is called regeneration. This internal 
mind is the Lord’s kingdom. It is the kingdom 
of heaven within us, and the Lord is really its 
King. But the external mind is depraved, and 
the love of self and the world is king there. It 
looks out upon the world, through the material 
body, and is surrounded with temptations. 

Every man who is being regenerated may be fully 
conscious that he has these two minds. He sees 
qualities in his external man which his internal 
and better judgment and feelings condemn, while 
his natural man is inclined to cherish and indulge 
them. He is fully sensible of a warfare between 
the two kinds of thoughts and feelings within 
him. In this condition, the human mind is a 
house divided against itself. If the internal mind 
predominates, the Lord rules, and the external 
man gives up, and is gradually cleansed, and 


54 THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 


serves the internal; and thus the Lord’s will is 
done in the earth of that man as well as in his 
heaven. The external mind now loves the Lord, 
and acts with the internal. But the internal mind - 
cannot control and govern the external against 
its will. They are two distinct minds forever. 
And true happiness, either here or hereafter, con- 
_ sists in looking up to the Lord, and freely acting 
with His spirit. 

Now God Himself, as to His internal and exter- 
nal, or the Eternal Father and Son, or Good and 
Truth, in Wis infinity, was ever above the heavens 
(6280) ; and in His fulness was beyond the reach 
of all human thoughts; because the finite cannot 
grasp the infinite. Therefore He had to send His 
truth down to men, expressed in men’s words of 
finite definitions. And whenever His eternal Hu- 
man, or Son, was seen before the incarnation, it had 
been first received as the truth of the Word, by 
the finite minds of the angels; and the Lord there 
assumed it by infilling an angel with Himself, and 
thus presenting Himself in His human, as finited 
by the angel, to men in the flesh, whose spiritual 
sight was open to behold Him. Hence the angel 
was called “the angel of the Lord.” Thus He 
appeared unto Abraham, and Joshua, and Gideon, 
and Manoah and his wife, and was acknowledged 
as the God of the universe (6831). 

Now we can understand but little, definitely, 


THE LORD'S FIRST ADVENT. SNS 


about the Divne incarnation; but we may believe, 
from the teachings of the Word, as now opened 
to its spiritual sense, that in the infant child Je- 
sus our heavenly Father assumed from Mary the 
fallen nature of man, containing within it a “ Di- 
vine human essence” from Himself, and with 
which He was more interiorly connected. Here 
was an infant, to the will of the external mind of 
whom the Father gave the “ human essence,” which 
was “Divine good natural,” and which was clothed 
with evils and falses from Mary (4641, 5157). 
And though interiorly connected with it, yet the 
great Jehovah was still everywhere in His eternal 
human, filling, sustaining, and giving life to the 
universe. But as He was the only Father of this 
infant, so He was interiorly within it, and as it 
should be born and developed from Him into man- 
hood, and be purified and glorified, by putting off 
what was from Mary and putting on His own hu- 
man, He could flow down into it and make it 
really the Divine body, the Infinite humanity 
among men; the Immanuel. 

* The Lord, as to His internal man, was Jehovah 
Himself; and, as the internal man or Jehovah, He 
guided and instructed the external man asa father 
his son; therefore as to the external man, in re- 
spect to Jehovah He is called the Son of God; 
but, in respect to His mother, He is called the 
Son of Man” (1733); and after “He put off” 


56 THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 


the human from the mother, and “put on the 
Divine human,” “He called Himself the Son of 
“Man” by virtue of the human put on (2159). 
But the most external of the child’s mind had for 
_a time to obtain its knowledge from the Word and 
from science, as do other men. Jor the rational 
of that mind, which consists of good and truth, 
had its good “from Jehovah the Father, by whom 
He was conceived, but the truth was to be pro- 
cured in the ordinary way as with other men” 
(3161). But this rational, born by an external 
way, had things in it worldly and hereditary which 
had to be expelled as the Divine rational was born 
from within. Thus the Divine humanity was all 
from Jehovah (2631). 

Now this new mind could not expand to rational 
intelligence, so as to manifest itself in this world, 
but as the material brain and general physical 
system were formed and developed. Therefore, 
though the Almighty God that inhabited eternity 
was the self-existent life of that child, yet, in order 
to manifest His wisdom and power: through that 
body, and thus give us the gospel in this world, 
the physical system, together with the assumed 
external mind, had first to be developed, and to 
that mind had to be given such a knowledge of 
natural things as to make it a suitable medium for 
the manifestation of goods and truths to natural 
men in this world. 


a 
THE LORD'S FIRST ADVENT. 57 


The outward elements of that external mind 


being infirm human from Mary, it was therefore — 


tempted in all points like as we are; not, how- 
ever, as to the Son of God, but only as to the 
Son of man. In consequence of His infirmities, 
He looked and prayed to God for instruction and 
help. Hence, as the Son of man, He was free, 
and had power given Him to resist temptations or 
not, as He pleased. His freedom was never in- 
terfered with. He was never forced to act against 
His will. Yet He did act against the depraved 
and selfish inclinations. But He first saw, from 
the truth of the Word, that those inclinations 
were wrong. Hence, when He was tempted, His 
reply to the devil was, “It is written,” etc. 

Like an Alexander, the love of the world in 
His infirm human was strong —so strong as to be 
symbolized by an exceeding high mountain. 
And when on that mountain, or when that love 
was excited, that infirm human could be tempted 
to possess all the kingdoms of the world, and the 
glory of them, by giving up to that love. But 
He saw that such a course would be wrong, and 
He said to the evil spirit which excited the selfish 
infirmity, “It is written, Thou shalt worship the 
Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.” 
As He thus resisted all temptations through the 
spirit of the Father, the evils and falses of the 
infirm human from Mary were put off, and the Di- 


58 THE LORDS FIRST ADVENT. 


vine love and wisdom, in their heavenly good and 
truth, were put on in the place of what was put 
off; so that when everything from Mary was put 
off, then the external mind was Divine human, the 
Son of God, One with the Father, God with men in 
their plane of life. Thus the Father, the Divine 
good, glorified the Son, the Divine truth, on 
earth, with His own self, ‘with the glory which 
the Son had with the Father above the heavens, 
before the world was. 

Primarily the Father and the Son were one in 
the fountain of all being; creating the universe, 
and making man with an understanding in the 
image of the Son, or of the truth, and with a will 
in the likeness of the Father, or of the good. 
But man fell into sin, and lost that image and 
likeness, by becoming evil and false. And now, 
through the incarnation and glorification, the orig- 
inal Father and Son are one in the ultimates of 
human life,—God with us (2803, 5663). And 
what the Lord’s assumed human in this process 
passed through, teaches clearly how that image 
and likeness are to be restored to us. To every 
infant and child God gives, by influx, natural good 
into the inmost of the will of the external mind. 
This natural good is surrounded with hereditary 
evils and falses. So with the child Jesus, the in- 
most of the external will was “Divine good nat- 
ural,” as the “human essence” from the Father. 


THE LORDS FirST ADVENT. 59 


This natural good was surrounded or clothed with 


hereditary evils and falses from Mary. Now, ina ~ = 
certain degree, there is a similitude between these - 
two infants and their development and purifica-_ 


tion. The natural good of the child Jesus was 
innate from “ conception divine,” and hence it was 
His own divine good. But the natural good of the 
other child is not innate, nor is it his own, but ts 
given to him, and he has it only as his own. And 
yet the development, purification and glorification 
of the assumed human, from infancy, are somtewhat 
a prototype of the development and regeneration 
of man. The one, in the process, put off all 
hereditary evils and falses which were from Mary, 
together with the material body, and brought the 
eternal Divine human from the Father out into 
the very ultimates of our nature, filling that human 
with the Divine love and wisdom, so that He was 
really God with us. The other infant, in the pro- 
cess, puts off all hereditary and actual evils and 
falses, and receives goods and truths from the 
heavenly Father in their place, and thus becomes 
a son or child of God im the image and likeness 
of the Father. One is the infinite Father in His 
Divine humanity among men, and the other is His 
finite and dependent child, who knows Him and 
loves Him. 

Thus, the merciful Father has come down to us 


60 © THE LORD'S FIRST ADVENT. 


to subdue our enemies, show us the way of life, 
enable us to receive His spirit, to resist all temp- 
tations, and be led by Him to purity and peace. 
And He is now gently saying to us, “This is the 
way, walk ye in it; follow me in the regener- 
ation.” 


DISCOURSE V. 
THE ATONEMENT, AND MAN’S REDEMPTION. 


‘¢ Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and 
redeemed His people.”— LuKE 1. 68. 


Our subject is the great doctrine of the Atone- 
ment, and man’s redemption — the doctrine upon 
which many portions of the Christian world hang 
all their hopes of salvation. And it is indeed the 
great doctrine of the holy Word which opens to 
fallen man the way of life. 

But what is the work of the atonement, and 
how is it made to bear upon the salvation of men? 
This is the question before us. Now the philos- 
ophy and beauty of this doctrine, which is even- 
tually to shine with its own light, and which, in 
its mercy and truth, must in due time bring the 
world to see eye to eye, can be reached only 
through a rational knowledge of the Divine char- 
acter, of the fall of man, and of the conditions of 
salvation. God must be seen to be one in person, 
infinitely good, wise, and powerful, and the author 
of no evil, sin, or misery. 

Man must be seen to be a free and rational being, 


(62) 


62 ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 


originally created good, with life and power given 
him to do either right or wrong; and that, through 
the abuse of his freedom, he became depraved, 
and thus introduced sin and misery into the world. 
And the conditions of man’s salvation must be 
seen to be repentance for his deceitful and selfish 


disposition, faith in the way of salvation pointed — 


out by our Lord, when He says, “If ye would 
enter into life, keep the commandments”; and 
then the carrying out of that faith by an honest, 
kind, and virtuous life. When the light of these 
doctrines is rationally seen and embraced, then the 
work of redemption will be seen to be the coming 
of the Lord down to men by subduing evil in- 
fluences in their plane of life, so as to reach their 
understandings and wills by His truth. It was 
the bringing the Divine truth in its power into 
the human sphere on earth, and within the reach 
of man’s thoughts and feelings, so that the spirit 
of truth and love could reach his mind, and en- 
able him to see his evils, and be willing freely to 
resist the wrong and do the right. 

This was the work of redemption. For the race 
had sunk so low in depravity as to be beyond the 
reach of the spirit of truth to control man’s evils 
by rationally reaching his freedom and leading 
him to virtue and righteousness. ‘Thus man was 
mercifully redeemed, not from his sins, but to the 


: / 


a a al a 


ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. | 63 


privilege of salvation. The atonement was the 
reconciliation of this redeemed man to God. 

The word atonement truly means reconcilation. 
And the doctrine of the atonement is embraced 
in these words of Paul—“God was in Christ 
reconciling [or atoning] the world unto Himself.” 
The word atonement occurs but once in the New 
Testament in the common translation; and then 
it is man that receives it, it is man that is recon- 
ciled. The passage is in Romans. Paul there 
says,—“We joy in God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whom we have received the atonement.” 
The Greek word, there translated atonement, is, 
in the other places of the New Testament, rendered 
reconciliation. 

To understand our subject we must bear in 
mind the nature of the incarnation, as presented 
in the last discourse. We must see that the 
Lord, as well as man, had an internal mind and 
an external mind. His internal man was Divine, 
and wasthe Father. His external man was human, 
and was the Son (1584). With this mind in union 
with the other He created, sustains, and governs 
the universe. With this view of two minds in 
the Lord we can see how the Father and the Son 
could hold the intercourse mentioned in the Word, 
whenever the evils and falsities of the assumed 
mind were hiding the glory of the Divine truth 
from the view of the external mind. 


64. ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 


We should understand that in the assumption 
of the human in our fallen nature, from Mary, 
there was first produced an external mind or 
Son, clothed in an infant’s material body; that 
Jehovah gave to the will of this Son, “Divine 
good natural, which was His human essence” ; that 
Mary clothed that good with evil, so that this 
will was outwardly depraved and inwardly pure . 
(5157) ; and further, that the understanding from 
Mary of this external mind was, at first, in the 
darkness of falsity, and received impressions from 
nature through the senses, and obtained knowl- 
edge from without (1661). ‘Thus, besides the 
“human essence” from the Father, there was also 
assumed from Mary an infirm human in the fallen 
nature of the world. 

Hence a Divine way was opening, by which the 
Father within could come more externally and 
fully down to men for their salvation. And the 
leading work of the atonement was to purify, fill 
out, complete and reconcile this external mind, this 
human, or Son, to the Father, or internal mind. 
This was done by crucifying and putting off what 
was evil and false, and putting on what was good 
and true from the Father with. In this way 
an atonement or agreement was effected between 
the two minds; between the human mind and the 
Divine mind in Jesus Christ.. An atonement is 
therefore simply an at-one-ment, as the word was 


ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 65 


originally divided. It was the bringing of the as- 
sumed human aé-one with the Divine, or the Father. _ 
This work is what is meant by God’s being in. 
Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. He 
first reconciled the assumed human by glorification, 
through the putting off of its depravity and put- 
ting on Divinity, and thus making the human 
Divine, and filling it with the Father; so that He 
could then reach men, and help them to become 
atoned or reconciled to God by putting away their 
evils and falsities, and receiving goods and truths 
from the Lord. Thus the glorified Human be- 
came a medium or mediator between all the fulness 
of the Godhead dwelling bodily within it and the 
world without; so that this Mediator, or Divine 
humanity, could breathe upon His disciples, and 
say — “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” And God 
+5 still in Christ reconciling or atoning the world 
unto Himself, or reconciling all worldly men to 
God who will yield to His spirit, or to the power 
of the truth, and keep the commandments. 

Thus the doctrine that the atonement consists 
in the Son’s suffering the penalty to the Father’s 
law in man’s stead, is lost in the idea that the 
Father and the Son are the will and the understand- 
ing, or the good and the truth of the same Being, 
and therefore that the law of the Father is also the 
law of the Son. For as the Father, Son and 
Spirit are the one eternal God, neither of them could 

fey 


66 ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 


suffer. Nothing Divine suffered (T. C. R. 126). - 
The evil will, the false understanding, and dis- 
eased body, from Mary, suffered, because they 
were depraved, and at variance with the true laws 
of life and peace. But they did not suffer the 
penalty to others’ sins. The depraved human 
from Mary suffered the penalty of its own sinful- 
ness. But it suffered no more than it was neces- 
sary for it to suffer in order to be put away from 
the Divine nature, together with the hosts of hell 
that were tempting it. It was evil and false life. 
It had to die, in order that the Son of God could 
come out more fully to men, bringing the Father, or 
Divine love, with Him and in Him. So our evil 
and false principles, our depraved nature, inher- 
ited from our natural parents, must die and be 
put away, before the good and true principles 
which God gives us in regeneration can come fully 
out to the world, showing that we are children of 
God. 

* The doctrine that the Lord suffered the penalty 
to man’s sins in his stead, was originally founded 
on the idea that God had fixed a penalty of eternal 
misery to the transgression of His law; and that 
this penalty fell upon Adam and all his posterity. 
Consequently, all mankind would have to suffer 
that penalty unless some being other than man 
would suffer it for him. But the Christian world 
is now generally, to some extent, either modify- 


ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 67 


ing or giving up that view of the Divine law. 


And well they may, for the Holy Word teaches . < 


no such doctrine, but indeed the very opposite. 
Let us lock rationally at its teachings on the sub- 
ject before us; for the laws of Infinite wisdom 
must be reasonable. 

Now we are obliged to admit that the law of 
an infinitely good and perfect being must be in- 
finitely good and perfect. Could such a law be 
changed for a very different one, and the latter be 
good and perfect? If it be right that the guilty 
should suffer for his sins, would it not be wrong 
for him not to suffer? Can we suppose that it would 
be as well for us not to suffer pain when we break 
the physical law, or anxiety when we break the 
moral law? Pain is the great prompter to the 
preservation of physical life. Without it child- | 
ren would put out their eyes and whittle off their 
fingers. The penalty to the violated law, whether 
_ physical or spiritual, is a blessing. It follows as 
the effect of a cause, and must have its use. The 
Divine law is, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” 
Has this law ever been abrogated? The Lord 
says, He came not to destroy the law, but to 
fulfil. He fulfilled it by keeping it ina nature 
like ours. Though filled with tendencies to sin, 
and tempted in all points like as we are, yet that 
assumed nature never sinned. And now, with His 
example before us, and the offered influences of His 


68 ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 


spirit, He wants us to fulfil the law, and make it 
honorable, as he did. 

God said to Adam, “The day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die.” They ate and 
died. But what killed them? Not God, nor His 
law. They cannot kill anything good. The evil 
fruit killed them. They ate of deception, covet- 
ousness, murder, adultery, and thus became dead 
in sin.. And the only way to become alive again 
was to abstain from eating that fruit, until they 


should lose a relish for it, and obtain from God a 


love of honesty, virtue, benevolence and kindness, 
through repentance, faith, and a godly life in de- 
pendence upon the Lord. 

The atonement, therefore, changes none of the 
Divine laws, but simply brings the heavenly in- 
fluences down within our reach, so as to enable us 
_ to resist temptations and rise from death unto life. 
The same law that declares death by transgression 
says, “ When the wicked man turneth away from 
his wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful and 
right, he shall surely live.” From this passage 
alone, we see that there was no penalty of eternal 
death attached to transgression — nothing that for- 
bade man’s returning to God. Indeed, how could 
He who willeth not the death of a sinner attach 
any such penalty ? 

Moreover, if man died an eternal death he could 
not be made alive again. Eternal death is death 


ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 69 


eternal. If the penalty of death were efernal, 
how could it be paid by the Lord’s sufferings, 
even if He suffered as a substitute for men? No 
eternal death was suffered. The Lord rose from 
the dead. The truth is, every man suffers the 
penalty of his own sins. The Bible nowhere 
teaches that the penalty of sin is ever remitted ; 
but, on the contrary, that the sinner must bear it. 
There is much said in the Word about the forgive- 
ness of sins; but the penalty is a very different 
thing. The fact is, we have grown up from child- 
hood under the false impression that the forgive- 
ness of sins is the relinquishment of punishments ; 
and it is hard for us to see that the removal of 
evil desires from the soul is the only remission of 
sins. These evil desires are the cause of the pen- 
alty or unhappiness. When the cause is removed, 
the penalty ceases. God neither inflicts nor re- 
mits the penalty to transgression. It is the sure 
effect of man’s sins. God remits or removes 
our evils whenever we break off from them by 
righteousness. Then, as God does not remit the 
penalty of man’s sins, but the transgressor bears 
it, a vicarious sacrifice, as commonly looked at, 
was not necessary, nor could the Saviour suffer it. 

But we should not, on this account, undervalue 
the great work of the atonement. We owe every- 
thing to the Lord for what He then did for us.- 
We were sinners, in a lost and hopeless condition, 


70 ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 


and the merciful Father wanted to save us. For 
this purpose He assumed from Mary our fallen 
nature, with a pure “human essence” within it 
from Himself, and He protected that fallen nature 
from all sin, amid all its temptations and suffer- 
ings to its death. And as it gradually died, and 
was put off, the full Divine human was put on 
from the Father within, and thus the “human 
essence ” was developed, purified from its de- 
praved clothing, and thus glorified and made Di- 
vine; God with us—the Immanuel. And all 
this was mercifully done for us. It was done ex- 
pressly for, our salvation. The event, therefore, 
is just as important to us as it would have been 
had He actually suffered the penalty of our sins, 
and, indeed, much more so; for it provides a ra- 
tional and consistent way of salvation, giving us 
happiness, not by pardoning the penalty. of our 
sins, but by purifying us from our evils, so that 
we can enjoy that happiness in pure angelic de- 
light. 

All this was done gratuitously, and in pure mercy 
for us. It is therefore recorded that He died for 
us. But what died? Every propensity of the 
assumed nature that could be tempted ; every ten- 
dency toward self-love. He crucified them in 
His assumed nature, that He might be able to 
reach and dispose us to crucify them in our nature 
through His spirit. It is also written that by His 


ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. WI 


stripes we are healed; that is, by His stripes He 
was made perfect by putting off the fallen nature, 
so that God’s spirit is thereby brought down to 
our aid, that we may be healed by following Him 
in the regeneration. It is further written that 
* He became sin for us,” that “He bore our sins.” 
This means that He assumed our sinful nature and 
bore our sins, or the sins of the world, in their 
tendency, but not in their actuality. He never 
sinned. And He would now aid us to bear our 
sins without sinning, as He did, and -thus to fol- 
low Him in the regeneration, and become purified. 

Again, “He was a propitiation for our sins.” 
Now a propitiation is a reconciliation. God clothed 
His own Divine human essence in our fallen nature 
from Mary, and commenced an external mind 
down in our plane of life; and this mind He pro- 
pitiated, atoned, or reconciled to the Father, or in- 
ternal mind, by putting off what was finite and 
depraved, and putting on, from Himself, His own 
eternal Divine humanity in substitution for what 
was put off, and thus becoming “God with us.” 
And He became that propitiation for, or on ac- 
count of, our sins; or because we had sins and He 
wanted us to become propitiated or reconciled to 
God through His spirit, by putting off our de- 
pravity as He did, and receiving good and truth 
from the Father in the place thereof. Thus He- 


92 ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 


went before us, set us an example, and opened the 
way. 

Now it has been supposed that all these acts of 
the Lord had reference to the penalty of man’s 
sins; but that is a great mistake. He does not 
say that He died for the penalty of our sins, or 
that he bore that penalty, or that the penalty is 
removed by His stripes, or that He was a propi- 
tiation for that penalty. Indeed, the penalty of 
sin is nowhere mentioned in the whole Word of 
God, but as something that the sinner himself must 
_ bear. Much is said of what the Lord did for the 
sins of the world, and for the forgiveness or 
remission of sins. But the forgiveness of the pen- 
alty is most emphatically denied. “The righteous- 
ness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the 
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” Ac- 
cording to what we sow we must reap. Every 
man must be rewarded or punished according to 
his works. Now the penalty is simply the spir- 
itual condition of unhappiness which we are in, in 
consequence of our sins. And in that condition 
we must remain, as a matter of course, until the 
sins or evils are removed from the will. - 

It is written that the blood of Christ cleanseth 
from all sin. And some have supposed that the 
material blood shed upon the cross is, in some 
way, received by the Father, as a satisfaction for 
the penalty of the sins of those who believe in it. 


ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 72, 


But by the spiritual light of the Word we see 
that, by the blood of the Lord, is simply meant 
the Divine truth. It is the Divine truth that 
cleanseth from all sin; and that truth must be ap- 
propriated to the mind. Hence the Lord says we. 
must drink His blood or have no life in us. 
“Without the shedding of blood there is no re- 
mission.” If the Lord did not shed abroad the 
Divine truth, it could not be applied to men’s 
minds for the remission of their sins or the re- 
moval of their evils. The blood of the Lord’s 
material body does not cleanse from sin, nor can 
we drink it. And when the Jews murmured be- 
cause He said they must eat His flesh and drink 
His blood, He told them that the flesh profiteth 
nothing ; that His words are spirit and life. 

It was not the crucifixion of the Lord’s material 
body that opened the door of salvation which man’s 
depravity had closed. That crucifixion was a bad 
act. It was done, the Bible says, by “wicked hands.” 
Therefore it was a transgression of the law. The 
salvation of the world does not hang on the trans- 
gression of the law. The Lord had two crosses, 
natural and spiritual. It was the spiritual cruci- 
fixion of the depraved nature assumed that brought 
down the Holy Spirit to men. The Lord said to the 
Father before the crucifixion of the body, “I have 
finished the work that Thou gavest me to do.” 
(John xvii. 4.) Nothing died that was good. It 


74 ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 


was only the death of the assumed selfish nature 
and the material body. He was taking up His 
cross against that selfish nature, and dying this 
death during all His life in the world, and partic- 
.ularly in His temptations. The Lord gave up 
nothing that was of any value to Himself or any 
one else. 

Thus the Lord’s crucifixion and removal of what 
was selfish and worldly, brought down into the 


plane of our nature a glorified Divine humanity, 


in which He is giving to mankind His merciful 
and righteous example, the written gospel of 
truth, and the blessed power of His spirit, saying 
in accents of compassion and tenderness, “ This is 
the way, walk ye in it”; “Take up your cross and 
follow Me”; “He that findeth his life shall lose it, 
and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find 
it.” That is, he that findeth his real life shall lose 
his carnal and selfish life; and he that loseth his 
sinful life shall find his heavenly life. Thus the 
Lord took our depraved nature and crucified it that 
through the Divine humanity, thereby brought 
down to our aid, He may reach and save a fallen 
world. Hence the shout. of the angels, at His birth, 
was, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace ; 
good-will towards men!” ‘That heavenly. shout 
of the angels was not made in vain. For, though 
that peace has not yet come fully on earth, yot 
the light which is now beaming from the Holy 


ATONEMENT AND REDEMPTION. 75 


Word, with such power and great glory, will 


surely accomplish it in the Lord’s own good time. — 


For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. And 
not one jot or one tittle of His Word shall ever 
fail until all be fulfilled. 


DISCOURSE VI. 


THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS. 


‘Tf any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”—LUuKE Ix. 23. 


Our subject is the Apostolic doctrine of the 
Cross, as taught in the literal sense of the Gos- 
pels and Epistles, and believed by the apostles. 

And to him who carefully examines it, it will 
seem exceedingly strange that intelligent men 
should have drawn from the Bible the idea that, 
in the crucifixion and sufferings of Christ, the pen- 
alty of man’s sins was borne, and an atonement 
thereby made to the Father for the sins of a fallen 
world, when no such doctrine is to be found, 
either in the letter or the spirit of the Bible; nor 
could the apostles have had any such idea. 

God, in the assumption of our nature, took, at 
first, the human essence from Himself, which was 
natural good. This was clothed with an evil and 
false human nature, from Mary. (A. C. 4641.) 
These elements formed an external mind, or Son, 
with which the Father, or Divine love and wis- 
‘lom, was interiorly connected as the internal 


(76) 


THE CROSS. 77 


mind (A. C. 1584, 1587). This natural mind 
seenied at first to itself, as our natural mind seems 
to us, to be a man of itself. And it was educated 
and developed through the senses as other natural 
minds are. It was the external man in a material 
body, and he inherited from Mary the same exter- 
nal mental and physical tendencies to selfishness 
and evil that we have, otherwise He could not 
have been tempted in all points like as we are. 
The great cross which He took up was against 
the evil tendencies of His nature — against His 
temptations ; and therefore He never sinned. Thus 
it was essentially a spiritual cross which He bore. 
In bearing this cross, He had great agony of mind. 
He had to resist His darling loves, and the entire 
force of all evil spirits. For the pure human es- 
sence from the heavenly Father was clothed with 
an evil will and false understanding from Mary, 
and into these the evil spirits could flow; so that 
the resistance of them caused even the sweating 
of great drops of blood. Thus He crucified the 
depraved mind —the old man in the flesh. This. 
mental crucifixion was the “death unto sin” of 
which the apostle John speaks, when he says, “In 
that Christ died He died unto sin.” This death 
was the great labor of. His life in the flesh. And 
as the depraved human from Mary was thus cruci- 
fied and put off, the Father, in a glorified Divine 


“8 TUE CROSS. 


humanity, took its place, and is now, the Im- 
manuel — Jehovah Jesus. 

This spiritual cross is the express and definite 
teaching of the Lord and His apostles, as the very 
thing which has brought salvation within the reach 
of a fallen world. Therefore, “Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified” is made the very head and front 
of the gospel and of the Christian’s hope, by all the 
apostles. And well it may be, for all salvation 
now comes through the effects of that cross. And 
it is now of the highest importance that men un- 
derstand its teachings, and apply them to life. 

Paul says to the Romans, “So many of us as 
were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized 


yito lis. death. ist ov: Our old man is crucified 
with Him, that the body of sin might be de- 
stroyed. . . . . For in thet He died, He died 


unto sin.” Now, all must see that this baptism, 
crucifixion and death, do not relate to the material 
body of Christ. We are not baptized into the 
death of His body, but into His death unto sin. 
For true baptism is called the baptism of repent- 
ance for the remission of sins. And when we 
truly repent of our sins we die unto them. It is 
thus that we are baptized into His death; and it 
is thus that our old man is crucified with Him, 
that the body of sin in us may be destroyed. 
Perhaps but few persons have so examined this 
subject as to see how the cross, whenever mentioned, 


THE CROSS. 79 


points decidedly to the spiritual cross, throughout 
the entire Bible. By this spiritual cross men see 
what took place in Christ’s assumed mind. They 
behold our selfish and depraved nature from Mary, 
there tempted, tried and crucified, dying unto sin. 
When this picture is brought rationally and vividly 
before the minds of men, they will then see what 
the apostles understood must take place in every 
other human mind, in its preparation for heaven. 
They will see that in Paul’s view every man’s re- 
generation contains, within it, Jesus Christ and 
Him crucitied. That is, they will see a similar 
depraved nature, passing through a corresponding 
process, under the influence of the same Spirit. 
And they will then see what Paul means when he 
says, “I am determined not to know anything 
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 
They will see that he says, I must sev in you my 
Saviour’s kingdom. I must see that kingdom 
established by the spirit of my Saviour, crucifying 
in you the old man in the flesh. I must see my 
Saviour’s crucifixion repeated in you. This is the 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified which Paul could 
know among his disciples as proper ground for 
true fellowship. But anything else than this he 
was determined not to know among them; for 
nothing else would answer the purpose. This is 
the grand cross which stands out conspicuously 
throughout the entire New Testament, hiding from 


& 


So THE CROSS. 


view, everywhere, the literal cross, to all minds 
who rightly view it. 

Indeed, salvation through the crucifixion of 
Christ’s bedy, could not have entered the thought 
of a single follower of the Lord during all the 
Lord’s life in the world. There was no ground 
for such a thought; for the Saviour never ad- 
vanced a single syllable from which the least 
shadow of an inference could be drawn, that He 
came into the world to have His body crucified to 
satisfy the penalty of the sins of men. But in- 
stead of any such doctrine, He gives, in all four 
of the gospels, the most simple and plain way to 
heaven possible; and it would seem that all might 
understand it: Lepent of your sins, believe in Me, 
be baptized, and keep the commandments. “He 
that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth 
his life for My sake shall find it.” This is the 
sum and substance of all His teaching concerning 
His cross or the way of life. Twice He seems 
somewhat to allude to it in the way of doctrine, 
where He says, “And I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto Me.” And again, “As Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so, also, 
must the Son of Man be lifted up.” But all this 
alludes to His glorification, in which He was lifted 
up above His assumed depravity. But before He 
- can draw all men unto Him, they must first lift 
Him up in their hearts. 


THE CROSS. 81 


Nevertheless, the history of the crucifixion of 
the Lord’s body is minutely recorded. But the 
Bible condemns the act as done by wicked hands. 
Yet notwithstanding that, the depraved nature 
from Mary freely thus gave up its life; which 
makes that crucifixion a symbol of the spiritual 
cross. 

Let us now further see what the apostles teach, 
in their epistles, on the subject of the cross. And 
first, as to Paul’s views, who has said most on this 
subject: It is perfectly clear, by the regeneration 
of any individual, at any time or place, Paul under- 
stood it to mean the same thing as the crucifixion 
of Christ; it being the crucifixion of a depraved 
nature like that which the Lord assumed, and be- 
ing performed in man by thé spirit of Christ, man 
giving up to it. Sometimes Paul calls it cruci- 
fixion with Christ; as that “our old man is cru- 
cified with Him.” 

Or, ashe says to the Galatians, “ God forbid that 
I should glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ, 
by whom the world is crucified unto me and I 
unto the world.” Here, all must see, that Paul 
means the cross of Christ which Paul himself 
took up, or which Christ’s spirit took up in Paul 
by Paul’s consent and coédperation. For that is 
the only possible way that Paul could be crucified 
unto the world and the world unto Paul. Again, 
Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ ; neverthe- 

6 


85 THE CROSS. 


less, I live; yet not I, but the spirit of Christ 
that liveth in me.” Here Paul tells us that it is 
his selfish nature that is crucified, and that he is 
truly alive only in the spirit of Christ. Again 
Paul says to the Galatians, “And I, brethren, if 
I preach circumcision, why do I suffer persecu- 
tion? then is the offence of the cross ceased.” 
Here Paul says, if he preaches circumcision he 
preaches the cross; that it is no offence against 
the cross to preach circumcision, because circum- 
cision and the cross are the same thing. For cir- 
cumcision, he says, “Is of the heart by the spirit.” 
All this is regeneration, which is death unto sin, 
which, in Paul’s view, is the cross of Christ. For 
baptism took the place of circumcision. Both de- 
note regeneration or the crucifixion of Christ, as 
understood by Paul. Again, Paul says to the 
Colossians, “For Christ sent me not to baptize 
but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of 
words” [not in the letter] “lest the cross of Christ 
should be of none effect.” Here Paul teaches that 
if he preached the literal cross, it would be of 
none effect. And he further says, “Our sufficiency 
is of God, who hath made us able ministers of 
the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the 
spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth 
life.” He therefore must preach the spiritual 
cross, not the literal. Again, Paul says, “The 
Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after 


THE CROSS. 83 


wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified; to the 
Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks, fool- 
ishness.”. Now why was Christ crucified a stum- 
bling-block to the Jews? - Because the Jews were 
an entirely literal people, and could not possibly 
see anything in the cross of Christ but the death 
of the natural body; which was not the cross that 
Paul preached. And why was it foolishness to 
the Greeks? Because they sought after wisdom. 
But their wisdom was all worldly wisdom, the 
wisdom of words. And Paul says he was sent to 
preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, 
lest the.cross of Christ should be of none effect. 
The spiritual cross, therefore, which Paul preached 
was foolishness to the Greeks. They could not 
see how men could be crucified with Christ, unless 
nailed to the wooden cross. Again, Paul says to 
the Philippians, “And being found in fashion as a 
man, He humbled Himself and became obedient 
unto death; even the death of the cross.” .... 
* Wherefore, my beloved” ... . “work out your 
own salvation, with fear and trembling; for it is 
Christ that worketh in you.” Here the crucifixion 
of Christ and the regeneration of man are men- 
tioned as the same work. One is brought for- 
ward as a reason why the other should be done, 
and as producing the means for doing it. “Being 
found in fashion as a man,”—that is, having our 
fallen nature, “He humbled Himself and became 


84. THE CROSS. 


obedient unto death,” that is, He gave up His own 
will and way to the Divine nature and died unto 
sin, or unto His depravity [and now mark the 
application] ; “Wherefore, my beloved, work out 
your own salvation,” that is, die unto sin, be cru- 
cified with Christ, “for it is Christ that worketh 
in you.” Again, Paul says to the Colossians, “In 
whom also we are circumcised with the circum- 
cision made without bands, in putting off the body 
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of 
Christ: buried with Him in baptism.” Here cir- 
cumcision and baptism, which mean cleansing from 
sin, and Christ’s death and burial, and man’s re- 
generation or death unto sin, must all mean the 
same thing in the apostle’s mind. Again, Paul 
says to the Hebrews, “In all things it behooved 
Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He 
might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in 
things pertaining to God; to make reconciliation 
for the sins of the people; for in that He Himself 
hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor 
those that are tempted”; that is, by enabling them, 
by His spirit, to resist the temptations, and thus 
to become reconciled to God by regeneration. 
Again, Paul to the Romans says, “And though 
He were a son, yet learned He obedience by the 
things which He suffered; and, being made per- 
fect, He became the author of salvation unto all 
that obey Him.” Here we are taught that by the 


0 


THE CROSS. 8s 


crucifixion of the Lord’s assumed nature from 
Mary, He became perfect, and the author of sal- 
vation to men. But only through their obedience 
to His laws, which would require their death unto 
sin. 

The apostle Peter says, “ Forasmuch as Christ 
has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with 
the same mind. For He that hath suffered in 
the flesh, ceased from sin.” Here Peter says that 
Christ, by suffering in the flesh, ceased from sin. 
That is, He put away the assumed tendencies to 
sin. So Peter tells his disciples to arm themselves 
with the same mind, that they, too, may cease 
from sin. Peter again says, “For hereunto are 
we called, because Christ, also, suffered for us, 
leaving us an example, that we should follow His 
steps.” Thus he teaches that what Christ has 
done is made available only by following His 
steps; or, by crucifying our depravity by regen- 
eration, as He did His by glorification. Peter 
again says, For Christ has suffered once for sin, 
the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to 
God. Were Christ is said to suffer, the just for 
the unjust; and so He did. For thongh He had 
our fallen nature, yet He was just, because He 
never sinned. He was not in fault for His de- 
pravity, He assumed it all. It was the wicked 
world, from which He took His depraved nature, © 


86 THE CROSS. 


that was unjust. That nature had to suffer for its 
depravity. And it was all done for us, that He 
might bring us to God. And we can come to God 
only by regeneration, or by suffering for sin, 
as He did. 

The apostle John says, “He is the propitiation 
for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins 
of the whole world” ; and he adds, “ Whoso keepeth 
His Word, in him is the love of God perfected.” 
Here John teaches that it is man that is propitiated, 
appeased or reconciled, and that it is done by 
keeping God’s Word. Christ is the propitiation, 
because it is only in His spirit that we can truly 
keep the law, and thus become propitiated or 
reconciled. Again John says, “We know He 
was manifested to take away our sins.” Now, what 
are ouir sins? They are not the penalties, but the 
evil and sclfish affections. He takes these away 
through our repentance, faith and obedience: 
thus giving us a clean heart and a right spirit. 
This is what He was manifest for. 

Again, Paul, assuming the Divine words, says 
tothe Romans, “ Sacrifice and offering, burnt offer- 
ing, and offering for sin, thou wouldst not, neither 
hast thou pleasure therein; then said He, Lo, L 
come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away 
the first, that He may establish the second.” Here 
Paul understood the Word to teach that God did 


a 


=) 
Ay aS ee ee 


THE CROSS. 87 


not require sacrifice and offering for sin ; that God 
had no pleasure therein; and that Christ came 
not for such sacrifice, but to do the Lord’s will, 
and that He thus took away the jirst— the law of 
sacrifices, and established the second — the law of 
obedience. The sacrifice of the life of the Lord’s 
natural body on the cross, for the penalty of others, 
sins, is of that class of sacrifices in which the 
Lord says He has no pleasure. “The sacrifices of 
God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite 
heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.” God had 
pleasure in the sacrifice which the assumed human 
nature of our Lord made in giving up His own 
will and way to God. And He requires of'us 
a similar sacrifice. Therefore the apostle says, 
“We must render our bodies living sacrifices, 
holy and acceptable unto God, which is our reas- 
onable service.” We must allow them to commit 
no wicked acts. 

Again Paul says, “If we walk in the light, the 
blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin.” Here 
Paul teaches that the blood of Christ, which de- 
notes the Divine Truth, will cleanse us from all sin 
if we obey it, or walk in the light of it. Again 
Paul to the Romans says, “Whom God hath set 
forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His 
blood, to declare His righteousness for the remis- 
sion of sins.” Here it is declared that through 
faith in Christ’s blood, He isa propitiation. This 


88 THE CROSS. 


simply means that through faith in the Divine 
Truth, man becomes obedient, and is thus propi- 
tiated or reconciled. Thus his sins are remitted 
or removed through Christ‘s righteousness or 
goodness. That is, through the righteousness 
or mercy of Christ we have faith in His Truth; 
and through obedience, we become cleansed from 
our sins. 

We have now gone through the Gospels and 
Epistles; and every syllable therein recorded ex- 
planatory of the cross of Christ, His death and 
sufferings, relates solely to His spiritual crucifix- 
ion and death. For, in all the applications, it is 
taught that man must pass through a similar pro- 
cess, in order to be prepared for heaven. It is 
therefore the spiritual cross, and the Lord declares 
that man must take it up and follow him. Indeed 
He hangs the salvation of the world upon the 
cross He bore, and which all who are saved must 
also bear in a degree. 

Then let us not suppose that the unchangeable 
God was appeased, propitiated, or reconciled, or 
that His law was, in any light, satisfied or made 
honorable by the crucifixion of the Lord’s body. 
Let us take true views of the cross, that we may 
learn fully to take it up ourselves and thereby re- 
ceive into our souls the blessings it offers. 

But the Lord’s spiritual cross was not perfected 
until the body was crucified. The human nature 


THE CROSS. 89 


then gave up the last hold of anything of time 
and matter. It therein completed the entire cross 
against everything but holiness and purity. His 
last words were, “Jt ts finished.” In all this we 
see that in the death of the Lord’s material body 
His assumed nature from Mary closed its suffering 
and life, and became a complete martyr to truth 
and righteousness. That infirm humanity volun- 
tarily submitted to this death, in testimony to the 
truth; and it is in the power which the truth 
thereby completely gained over all evil influences 
and powers, by the Lord’s full glorification, and 
not in the death of the natural body, that salva- 
tion is brought to a wicked world. | 
Pontius Pilate did not do right in crucifying 
the Lord’s body. It was not an act in accordance 
with the Divine commandments. It was a wicked 
act, on his part, in every sense in which it can 
be viewed. And the human family could not be 
in any way benefited by it, had not the truth 
thereby gained some further victory or power over 
the wicked influences that caused that death of the 
body. But this act, together with the resurrec- 
tion, completed the glorification, and thus was a 
powerful rebuke to all evil influences, and put 
them under the Divine power, so that when men 
now look to the Lord for aid, using the truth of 
the Word in the spirit of the Lord, as all men 
are now held in freedom to do, they can success- 


90 THE CROSS. 


fully resist and conquer every spiritual foe, and 
every selfish depravity, and thus become purified, 
good and happy, in the Lord’s goodness. 

Thus it may be seen that it was the cross which 
the Lord took up, in our nature, against every- 
thing evil and false, which opened the door of 
salvation to a fallen world, so that all who desire 
may freely enter. And He is now offering to all 
men the power of the same triumphant spirit, 


saying, “Come unto me all ye that labor and 


are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
“Look unto Me, and be ye saved all the ends 
of the earth; for I am God, and there is none 
else.” 
«A just God and a Saviour; there is none be- 
side me.” 


a ee a ee ee ee ae ee 


DISCOURSE VII. 


CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


<¢ Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God.” — JouN Ul. 3. 


To be born is to be generated or created. The 
birth of anything is its creation. 

Man was originally created in God’s image and 
likeness. By the fall he lost that image and like- 
ness; and in this, he lost a true knowledge and 
love of God. To be regenerated is to be born 
again, or recreated. aes we fall from the love 
of good to the love of evil, we are said, in Scrip- 
ture language, to be dead; our manhood is lost ; 
we are not true human beings; we are inhuman 
and beastly. To be regenerated is to have the 
lost image of God restored to us. This can be 
done only through a knowledge and love of Him. 
- For what we love we are like in quality. 

The first thing, then, is to seek a proper idea 
of God’s nature and character. For we cannot 
love Him of whom we have no knowledge; and 
a thing is known only by its qualities. Wrong 
ideas of His qualities would place before us for 
worship another character than the true God. 


(91) 


g2 CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


Love to such a being could not give us the like- 
ness of our heavenly Father. It would make us 
like something else. Therefore laboring to be 
like such a being would not regenerate us. 

Now, a true idea of God’s qualities may be 
drawn from His commandments; for His spirit 
must be in His law. And in our regeneration He 
says He puts His law in our inward parts, and 
writes it in our hearts. This he does by sustain- 
ing us in opposing, in ourselves, what that law 
condemns, and in doing what it teaches, until we 
gain a love for it. In loving God’s law, we love 
Him, and thence we have His image. For, as His 
law requires of us nothing but what is good and 
trne, merciful and just, we are therein assured that 
such must be His qualities. These qualities are also 
conspicuously seen in His command to us to love our 
enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them 
that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully 
use us and persecute us, that we may be His chil- 
dren, and thus have His image. From all this we 
see that God is good and true. Indeed, that His 
distinct qualities are infinite love, infinite wisdom, 
and infinite power. He is, therefore, the author 
of no evil, or misery ; for a good tree cannot bring 
forth evil fruit. Ali things of His Word that 
appear to speak otherwise of Him are clearly and 
satisfactorily explained in the spiritual sense. 

We should further understand that all life, all 


CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 93 


good, all truth, and all power, are of and from 
God; that they were never created, but are self- 
existent, infinite and eternal principles, belonging 
solely to God as His own; and are given by Him 
to men, who, being finite, receive of them finitely, 
and variously, according to their several capacities. 
With this view of the character of our heavenly 
Father, and remembering that man is endowed _ 
with freedom and rationality which give him a 
selfhood to do as he pleases, whether right or 
wrong, we may see that regeneration is simply 
the way kack out of the evils and depravity into 
which we have fallen by transgression. The Lord 
did all He could to keep us from falling, consistent 
with our freedom. That freedom He never over- 
rules. Such an act would destroy us as men, and 
reduce us to machines. Freedom, therefore, is 
the condition of our existence as men. By its 
abuse we fell, and by its use we must rise again. 
The regenerating work before us, then, is now 
plain. It is on our part simply to resist all 
temptations, and thus get rid of our sins, through 
repentance, faith and obedience. But we must re- 
member that our sins are not the penalty, nor the 
outward sinful acts we have done, nor an amount 
of guilt and crime that God has charged against 
us. Our sins are the evil qualities of our souls 
in action. They are our deceitful, unkind, licen- 
tious, covetous, and revengeful dispositions. They 


94. CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


are our selfish life’s love. To give them up is like 
parting with our very selves. But it must be done, 
or we can never know true peace and joy. 

Now, what is the first step in the regenerating 
work? Itis repentance. We must be sorry we 
have these evils, or we shall keep them. God 
cannot repent for us. This is our work. He 
gives us the truth to show us our evil desires, and 
we see that they are wrong, and should not be 
done. He also gives us the power, and holds us 
in freedom to oppose our evils or not, —to put 
them away or to keep them. This repentance 
must be more than sorrow for our bad acts, for 
fear of the punishment. We must repent of the 
disposition which committed the bad acts. True 
repentance operates against self-love. Indeed, we 
then oppose in us the things we most love. And 
we do it because they are wrong, and sins against 
God. 

But how can we be sorry for the things we most 
love? How ean we want to get rid of them? 
We cannot, in our own power. But the Lord is 
stronger than we are. And though He does not 
force us to repent, because such repentance would 
be good for nothing, yet He holds us in perfect 
freedom to yield our wills to the influence of His 
spirit or not; and if we yield, we bring into exer- 
cise a new and more interior will, and can then 
freely repent of the darling loves of our external 


CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 95 


will, because we are then with the Lord, acting 
with His spirit. The important point never to be 
lost sight of, is this: — ‘The Lord is supreme in 
regeneration; and we must give ourselves up to- 
Him, and act with His spirit in accordance with 
His laws, or nothing can be done. No evil can 
be removed without this course. No step can be 
taken heavenward in any other way. All progress 
upwards is made by giving up our external will 
and way to be governed and led by the Lord 
through the truths of His Word. All progress 
downward is made by disregarding the Lord and 
His Word, and going our own way. When we 
are tempted to do wrong, our own self-will is 
to commit the sin, otherwise we should not be 
tempted. And if we do not look to the Lord for 
help, we shall do it inwardly, and, indeed, out- 
wardly too, unless some outward influence, or the 
fear of some penalty, prevent. But, if we look 
at once to the Lord, sorrowful for our depravity, 
and prayerful that we be not led into temptation, 
we shall be able to act with His: Spirit, and thus 
with a new will; and, in that state, we shall 
loathe and turn away from the sinful desire, and 
thus the Lord will remit it. The remission of 
sins is simply the removal of dispositions to do 
wrong. 

The common mistake in Christendom once was, 
that the Lord, through man’s faith, pardons or for- 


96 CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


gives the penalty of his sins; or, what is the same 
thing, remits the punishment; so that the man is 
at once justified and regenerated by faith, though 
still possessing evil and depraved desires. But 
when a man clearly sees that the only way to get 
rid of the penalty is to have the cause removed, 
and that this can be done only by having the sel- 
fish and evil loves put away from the will; and 
that, to have all his evils removed is the work of 
his life, by daily repentance and giving up to God 
in obedience to His law ;—I say, when a man sees 
this, he will seek purification. He will pray fora 
clean heart and a right spirit, and will strive to 
resist and overcome every temptation. He will 
not then be troubled about the penalty, but about 
the sin itself. For he will see that the penalty to 
sin does a man no harm. Indeed, troublesome as 
it is, it does him good. He is better off with it 
than without it, so longas the sin remains. And 
it may be the means of prompting reflection, and 
of showing him his danger. 

But we are here asked what the Lord meant 
when He said to the woman, “Thy sins, which are 
many, are all forgiven.” He meant to convince 
her, and any others, that He was the “Friend of 
sinners,” and loved them ; that, on His part, He al- 
ways forgives everybody ; that He has no punish- 
ment for them ; that nothing but their sins punishes 
them; that He is an all-merciful and forgiving 


CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 97 


heavenly Father, and commands us to love and 
forgive our enemies, that we may be His children 
by being like Him. But He did not tell the woman 
that He had forgiven or remitted the penalty of 
her sins, as many have supposed ; or that the sins 
or depravities were removed. A spirit of kind- 
ness or forgiveness towards a sinner, is a very dif- 
ferent thing from the removal of either the evil 
loves or the penalty. The Lord commands us to 
have the same spirit of forgiveness towards sin- 
ners, but we cannot remit the penalty of their 
sins by our kindness ;. nor can the Lord Himself, 
unless they will repent of their evil loves, and 
have them removed bya godly life. But when 
the soul is cleansed, the unhappiness or penalty is 
gone. The Lord said to the woman taken in 
adultery, “Neither do I condemn thee”; which 
was the same as saying He forgave the sin. But 
though not condemned by the Tues yet her sins 
condemned her, and would ever give her trouble, 
unless she should break off from alin by righteous- 
ness, as the Lord commanded her when He said, 
“Go, and sin no more.” He says He condemns 
no one, but forgives all. And yet He tells sin- 
ners they are condemned. He says, “This is the 
condemnation, that light has come into the world, 
and men love darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds are evil.” 
Now regeneration is a progressive work, while 
7 


98 CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


conversion may be sudden and frequent. A great 
mistake has been made in the use of the term 
conversion. Conversion is simply a change of in- 
tention or purpose in a course to be pursued ; and 
does not cleanse the soul, nor remit its evils, nor 
cancel its punishments. When a man who has 
supposed that Christ had a common. father, and 


was only a good finite man, becomes rationally’ 


convinced, from the spiritual sense of the Word, 
that, by Christ is meant the Divine Truth, and 
that the Divine Love is the Father, and that thus 
Christ as the truth is God, or love manifest; that 
man is converted on that point of doctrine. And 
when, on studying further, he sees and believes 
that the Lord took our depraved nature and a ma- 
terial body from Mary, for the purpose of bring- 
ing the Divine influences down to the aid of men; 
and that then He put them off and put on the 
Divine qualities in their place, he is converted on 
this point. And so there is a conversion in every 
change of views for the better with an intention to 
live a better life. When a person pursuing a 
sinful course of life becomes convinced, by the 
truth, that he is doing wrong, and, looking to the 
Lord for help, turns from his evil way and resolves 
todo right, that man is converted. But he is still 
in his evils, and his conversion will do him no 
good, unless he goes further, by overcoming his 
evils and having them removed. 


————. 


CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 99 


Paul’s conversion has been often cited in sup- 
port of instantaneous regeneration. But Paul did 
not consider himself cleansed from his sins, or 
prepared for heaven. He says, long afterwards, 
“Who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?” And he was even afraid lest, at last, he 
should be “cast away.” 

The case of the penitent thief has also been 
often brought up. But we do not know the ex- 
tent of the thief’s wickedness, nor what was his 
inner self. His faith in the Lord and his prayer, 
and what the Lord said to him, all go to show 
that, at least, there was some good ground for the 
kingdom of heaven in him, and that some work 
had been done there. And we know that, after 
men commence the regenerate life, they some- 
times commit sins. It is a long and laborious 
work to overcome the natural man, and keep him 
from allevil. True, the Lord said to the thief, 
“This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” 
But day, in the Word, spiritually denotes state of 
mind. Every person, when he commences the re- 
gencrate life, enters upon a new state, or new day. 
And though he may have many new days or states 
of mind, before his regeneration is complete, yet 
they, altogether, constitute his one great pro- 
gressive day of salvation; his eternal day, given 
from the light of the Sun of Righteousness, which 
is rising with healing in his wings, and which is 


100 CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


never to set. So the spiritual day upon which the 
thief had entered, was a day never to end. And 
as he should progress in the regenerating work, he 
would finally come into Paradise with the Lord. 
For the work.of purification does not stop when 
we pass into the spiritual world. If we are being 
regenerated when we leave this world, the work 
goes on there, us we pass through the judgment. 
And when completed, we are prepared to enter 
the heavenly abode with the angels. 

This progressive regeneration cannot be well 
understood without a distinct idea of the two 
planes of the mind: the internal and the external 
mind, or the spiritual man and the natural man. 
The natural mind is first born or created; and 
afterwards the spiritual mind may be born. The 
first birth gives us a knowledge of this world and 
natural things. The second birth makes us ac- 
quainted with the spiritual world, with God, the 
soul, the mind, and their qualities and laws of 
action. Both of these births are births of the 
mind. The material body is not the man. It is 
only his house of clay. The external mind is 
progressively born by education in natural sci- 
ence and general knowledge of the world. With- 
out the birth of the spiritual mind, we should be 
only natural men. 

Now, the Word says through John, “Ye must 
be born again.” The new birth would be neces- 


CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. IOI 


sary if we were not sinners. If we were good 
natural men it would be necessary for us to learn 
spiritual things. The first chapter of Genesis 1s 
a history of the second birth of man, or of his 
spiritual creation, —the birth of his internal mind. 
The human family had been created good natural 
people; they had not fallen; but they had to be 
born again in order to be spiritual people, having 
the image and likeness of their spiritual, heavenly 
Father. 

Now our regeneration or new birth commences 
in the interior man, while our external mind has 
many evils, for we are fallen. When we begin 
rationally, in the light of the Holy Word, to see 
our evil lovesas wrong, and in humble dependence 
upon the Lord look to Him for help to resist 
temptations, and do His will, and thus begin to 
feel a love for the truth, the Lord commences His 
kingdom in the internal mind. There a spiritual 
mind is conceived, and the Lord is the King, and 
His commandments are the laws of the realm. 
This little kingdom is surrounded with the natural 
mind, with all its evil loves. We have now two 
minds, called in Scripture the spiritual mind or 
man, and the natural mind or man. The Lord is 
King in the spiritual mind, and we are king in the 
natural mind. The two minds are entirely dis- 
tinct, and never can become absolutely one; be- 
cause, in that, our individuality and freedom would 


‘ 


102 CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


be lost in the Lord. If the two minds in each - 
person had become absolutely one when man was 
created in God’s image and likeness, man never 
could have fallen; nor could he, as a distinct in- 
dividual, have known or enjoyed true happiness. 
But the two minds can come together and act as 
one, by the external mind’s giving up to the Lord — 
and doing His will. 

Now we are free to act with which of our minds 
we please. Our natural mind is in the love of 
self and the world; our spiritual mind in love to 
God and the neighbor. When we are acting with 
the spiritual mind we are religious, humble, and 
honest. The angels and the spirit of the Lord 
are acting with us. Weare regarding God’s laws, 
and are trying to keep from evil and do His will. 
While we are thus engaged the evils of the nat- 
ural man are quiescent, and the mind is yielding. 
But when we carelessly forget our higher life and 
duties, and act solely in the natural mind, evil 
spirits are with us, and we are selfish and unkind. 
In this way we may do that which is dishonest, as 
did the penitent thief. While we are thus en- 
gaged, our internal mind cannot reach and control 
the external mind against its will. Because the 
natural mind is free; and, in order to be purified, 
it must stop going its own selfish way, and must 
look up to the Lord and yield to the law. 

Now our regeneration consists in the removal 


CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 103 


of our evil loves from the will of the external 
mind, by our voluntary consent; and in thus let- 
ting the internal mind come down into the daily 
outward life of our feelings, thoughts, and actions, 
with our fellow men, the external mind acting 
with it. To accomplish this work, our external 
mind must give up to the internal, and become its 
servant. This it cannot do, in all its various qual- 
ities, at once; for it does not, at once, know allits 
evils. It cannot give them up and have them re- 
moved until they are seen. They cannot be seen 
until temptations call them into action. Higher 
evils cannot be seen until lower ones are put away, 
and higher light given. And none can be put 
away until their heinousness is seen, and opposed, 
and even loathed. For as long as we love an evil 
it is ours. Indeed, nothing belongs to us except 
what we love. Each evil, as it shows itself, 
must, at once, be decidedly opposed. Then, 
when tempted to deceive, we must stop, look to 
the Lord for power to suppress the wrong act and 
intention, and do the truth because it is the Lord’s 
will. And as we faithfully pursue this course 
until we hate the deception, the Lord removes the 
disposition to lie, and gives us a love of truthful- 
ness. And so when we are tempted to steal or 
covet, we roust stop, look to the Lord, be sorry 
for the evil, oppose the covetousness, act gener- 
ously, and thus pursue the course which will re- 


104 CONVERSION AND REGENERATION. 


move the evil and give a good principle in its 
place. And so we must go on, opposing every 
new evil of our nature, as it is brought out to 
view, looking to the Lord for help, and doing His 
will, until we have a clean heart and a right spirit. 
And this is the work of our life. This is regen- 
eration. This is the new birth. 


We are, every one of us, first born natural. 


The external mind is first born and developed. 
That mind, so born, is in the love of self and the 
world. Regeneration is the creation of the spir- 
itual mind and the cleansing of the natural mind, 
and thus the bringing of the whole mind into har- 
mony; into love to God and the neighbor. 

From all this we may see that hell, or the love 
of evil, was produced in the human mind by pur- 
suing the course that leads to it; and that heaven, 
or the love of good, can be regained to the soul 
only by pursuing the course that leads to that. 
We are creatures of habit, and thereby we form 
our tastes. Paradise was lost by habit. Heaven 
can be regained only by habit. The Lord says, 
“Tf ye would enter into life keep the command- 
ments.” “Not every one that saith unto me 
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father 
who is in heaven.” 


DISCOURSE VItt. 
THE LORD’S SECOND ADVENT. 


‘* As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even 
unto the west; so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”— 
Marr. xxiv. 27. 


Ir is clearly taught in the Holy Word, and has 
been universally believed by the Christian world, 
that the Lord would make a second coming. 

Those who believe in a personal coming suppose 
He will appear in the clouds of our earth. This 
they believe, because it is written that He would 
come in the clouds of heaven, and also because 
the angels, at the time of His ascension, said to 
the men of Galilee who were gazing up after a 
cloud had received Him out of their sight, “* This 
same Jesus, which is taken up from you into 
heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have 
seen [im go up into heaven.” | 

Now all this can be made plain to us only when, 
as in the preceding discourses, we take our stand 
upon the foundation rock upon which everything - 
permanent rests; and which is this: That the 
great Jehovah,—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,— 

(105) 


106 THE LORD'S SECOND ADVENT. 


is the one God in one person, truly known only 
in the person, life and qualities of the Lord Jesus 
Christ and His Gospel. Therefore, when we see 
that God is love, that His Son is the truth which 
that love speaks, and that God is manifest to men 
only as the truth of His Word and works is 
brought, in some degree, to their understandings 
and wills, so that they can see and feel something 
of their use and influence; then the advents of 
the Lord will be understood, and the dark things 
of the Word concerning Him will be made plain. 

Now we should all understand that the Lord 
God cannot come and go as to space, for there is 
no place in which He is not. ‘The clouds, there- 
fore, which received Him out of their sight, were 
the dark states of the disciples’ minds. The hu- 
man mind is finite. The Divine form is infinite, 
substantial, and human. The finiteness of the 
human mind beclouds the infinite. We cannot 
fathom nor comprehend infinite wisdom, nor can 
our mental eye drink in its full form. 

True, the Lord, after His resurrection, appeared 
a few times to His disciples, whose spiritual eyes 
were opened to behold Him; for though the finite 
material body was dissipated, there was still a 
finite spiritual form to be put off. He was not yet 
fully glorified,— was not yet fully made Divine ; 
as He said to Mary, “Iam not yet ascended to 
My Father.” But when this work was completed, 


THE LORD'S SECOND ADVENT. 107 


and the humanity, now Divine, was fully united 
to the Father, He ascended out of their sight.» 
But, in doing this, He did not go anywhere as to 
space. Being omnipresent truth, containing within 
Him all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, where 
could He go? He merely withdrew from the 
finite sphere of His disciples into His Divinity ; 
so that He could be no longer with His people ex- 
cept as the Paraclete, or as the power of the spirit 
of truth adapted to their states. But even in the 
truth of the Word, we have the Father, Son, and 
Holy Spirit ; for the words which the Lord speaks 
are spirit and life. But the spirit of truth is now 
the sphere of action without the visible form. 
The Lord’s ascension, then, was only His retiring 
beyond the reach of the states of His disciples to 
behold Him. And thus He was Jost in the clouds 
of their own finite capacities. 

And through these same mental clouds, in the 
literal sense of the Word He is now coming into 
the minds of men as the spiritual truth of the 
Word. It was from the law of correspondence 
that the Lord seemed, to the disciples, to ascend 
up into the clouds, as He retired into His Divinity. 
For, spiritually speaking, God is far above us. 
And in the spiritual world, when going into higher 
states of mind, a person seems to ascend. And 
His ascension was a scene in the spiritual world. 
The spiritual sight of the disciples was opened, 


TOG. THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 


and they at the same time saw angels, Therefore 
the clouds were mental. Natural clouds cannot 
be seen by spiritual eyes. Therefore He is to 
come in mental clouds, to be seen as the Divine 
truth by the understandings of men. 

Now this, to most of the Christian world of 
this age, is a new view, seen in the light of the 
science of correspondence. And as it is neces- 
sary, in order to learn any new science, to repeat 
often and drill much upon elementary principles, 
so you will bear with me while I here say, em- 
phatically, that it should be indelibly written in 
the soul, as the fundamental ground of all spir- 
itual education, that all spiritual or mental things 
are of spiritual substance ; that Divine good is the 
primary substance, — the substance of God; that 
love is the life of God; that truth is His form or 
Son; that the power of truth is His spirit; that 
the field of Divine action for the creation or regen- 
eration of man is the human mind; that God never 
comes rationally to men but by His Son, or the 
truth; and that, when He does come, it is first 
into their minds by their reception of the truth. 
It is only on this stand-point that a true and dis- 
tinct knowledge of the advents of the Lord can 
be gained. 

Thus we see that there can be no going nor 
coming between the Father and the Son. They 
are always together, as will and understanding, or 


THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 109 


good and truth. Could they be separated they 
would both be finite. Neither of them would be 
omnipresent. The Lord’s coming or going, there- 
fore, is solely with regard to the mind of man. 
He that does not understand and love the truth 
of the Word, has not God in his mind and heart. 
Yet God, by influx, is the very life of that man. 
But he does not knowingly receive Him into his 
thoughts and feelings. God is not with him ra- 
tionally, affectionately, and reciprocally. Thus 
all God’s comings and goings are into and out of 
the knowledge and affections of men. And this 
coming is by man’s willingly understanding and 
obeying the truth till he loves it; and the going 
is by his wilfully disregarding it, till he loses it. 
The coming and going are, therefore, all on man’s 
part; not at all on God’s. He is always every- 
where, and is the life and support of everything. | 
Thus, by the fall, we lose God; that is, we lose 
the love of good and truth; the Lord is gone from 
the afiections. But by regeneration He comes 
again. His goods and truths are received into the 
will and understanding without perversion, and 
we love God and the neighbor. It is because man 
has freedom and rationality that God can thus 
come and go. He comes and goes as to nothing 
else in the vast universe but the mind of man. | 

Now the Lord as the truth says, “Behold I 
stand at the door and knock.” Thus He wants to 


110 THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 


©. 


get into our affections. The understanding is the 
door to the will. The truth comes, saying it is 
wrong to steal, lie, murder, and covet; do good, 
love your neighbor. In this way the Lord stands 
at the door of our mind and knocks. Our yield- 
ing to the truth, and obeying it, is what is meant 
by hearing the Lord’s voice and opening the door. 
And as we get a love of the truth, we sup with the 
Lord by drinking that truth into our souls. And 
as we give our affections to God, in acknowledg- 
ment of the truth from Him, He sups with us. 
Thus the Lord comes into the world. 

But men had fallen so low, at the time of the 
first advent, that in order to get into their minds, 
He had first to assume our fallen mental nature 
from Mary. And although the Father, or Di-— 
vine love, was the inmost life of the child Jesus, 
yet the external mind which He received from 
Mary, containing within its will the “Human Es- 
sence” or “Divine Good natural” from the Father, 
was a little empire of itself, as it were, having life 
and power of its own from within, and containing 
will and understanding, rationality and freedem to 
act as it should think best in resisting temptations, 
and doing the Father’s will. He therefore resisted 
and overcame all the evils and evil spirits to which 
He had access through the assumed depravity, 
until He finally put off the fallen humanity which 
He received from Mary, and put on a Humanity 


THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. III 


from within, pure, glorified, and Divine, containing 
“all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Thus 
the Heavenly Father came down into the natural 
plane of human life, gave us His example and the | 
Gospel, and the influence of His spirit, so that He 
might reach, by His truth, any other minds that 
would look to Him for help. Hence He became 
more fully the spirit and life of the Word to men. 
Therefore, after the Lord’s ascension, the written 
Word became the obvious mediator in which the 
Comforter, —the Spirit of Truth, —could come 
to men. Hence the Lord said to His disciples, — 
“J will not leave you comfortless; I will come 
unto you.” And sothe Lord, as the Word, was 
with them, in the spirit of truth, as they preached 
the Gospel. 

But He told them that troubles would again 
come upon them and the Church ; that they would 
be “hated of all nations for (His) name’s sake,” 
and would be afflicted and killed; and that the 
state of things would become so disorderly as to 
render it necessary for Him to come again. 

Now, we understand that He has already made, 
and is still making, that second coming, as the 
Word of Truth, in strict fulfilment of irrefutable 
prophecy ; that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” 
—the Lord Himself,—more than a century ago, 
“prevailed to open the Book,” — His Holy Word, 
—and to “loose the seals” thereof, by revealing 


Tre THE LORD'S SECOND ADVENT. 


the long-lost science of correspondence, in which 
the Word is written, and by which its spiritual 
sense is seen; and that thus the Lord has been 
‘and is still making His second advent, as_ the 
Divine Truth, into the minds of men; and that 
He caused the Science of Correspondence, the 
opening of the Word, and the revelation of the 
Doctrines, to be carefully recorded, in many vol- 
umes, for the establishment of the New Jerusalem 
and the salvation of the world. 

But it is asked why, if this prophecy was thus 
being fulfilled a century ago, has not the world, ere 
this, believed it? It should be noticed that the 
prophecies of God are never clearly understood 
until they are being fulfilled ; and that their mean- 
ing is then at first seen but by few, and that 
the light progresses but slowly. This is because 
the new light is always against the popular and 
established views of the age. In those views men 
are always ignorant of what the Lord is, otherwise 
He would not be absent from them. The truth is 
always present to all that see and love it. For 
example : How was the Lord expected at His first 
coming? The Jews looked for Him to come as 
their literal King, to defend their cause and fight 
their battles. And though more than eighteen 
centuries have since passed away, yet they are still 
looking for Him. | 

And may not the Christian world, acentury ago, 


THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 113 


have been as much mistaken in the mode and ob- 
ject of His second coming as the Jews were of His 
first? The Church had certainly lost all true knowl- 
edge of Him, or He could not have been absent. 
The Jews little thought that He was coming to re- 
veal and establish a higher order of human life and 
fellowship than theirs, and yet the Bible clearly 
teaches it: and he surely did it. And so the 
Christian Church little dreamt that He was coming 
the second time to reveal and establish a higher 
order of human life and fellowship than theirs, and 
yet the Bible clearly teaches it. Indeed, they then 
_ generally believed that He would come in person, 
and assemble together the entire human race of 
both worlds, and judge them and send them to 
their eternal abode ; and would roll the heavens to- 
gether as a scroll, or burn them up; and thus blot 
out the entire visible system. 

But, instead of coming the first time as the 
Jews expected, His real coming was the Word, 
the Truth, the Light, and into human minds. 
And so of His second coming. He now comes as 
the truth of the Word for the souls of men. And 
by means of this coming He is eventually to bring 
all men together in truth and righteousness, in 
peace and love; wiping away tears from off all 
faces, and bringing the world into order. This 
the spiritual sense of the Word clearly teaches as 


revealed over a century ago. And since that time 
8 ‘ 


II4 THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 


new light has been coming into the world, and 
minds here and there, of all nations and sects, 
have received something of that light. 

Now, a moment’s rational reflection on the sub- 
ject must convince any one that the Lord, as the 
Word or the Truth, in order to make a coming to 
the people of this world, must first be absent as 
that truth; they must have lost a true knowledge 


of Him and His teachings. And a little candid . 


reasoning as to what the true character of the 
Lord must be, and also as to what was believed 
of Him a century ago, must show that the Chris- 
tian Church was then without true views of the 
spirit and character of the Lord, and has since 
been and is now gradually changing its views. 
How would that Church now shudder at the thought 
of burning at the stake all who would not sub- 
scribe to a certain formula! The bloody reigns 
of Philip and of Mary can never be repeated by a 
people bearing the name of the Christian Church. 
New light has come, —the spiritual light in the 
true doctrines of the Word, —and it can never be 
extinguished, but will grow brighter and brighter 
to the perfect day. The spirit of reformation and 
change is everywhere at work. The age that 
drenched the world with the blood of martyrs, 
simply for not believing the dark dogmas of men, 
was certainly, to a great extent, destitute of the 
true spirit of Jesus, and of the true doctrines of 


et 


THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 115 


love to God and the neighbor, which He so em- 


phatically taught, both by precept and example.” : 


No Christian people would allow such cruelties 
now. 

Nor were the leading doctrines of faith, which 
were taught in those days, the same as those orig- 
inally taught by the Lord. When He established 
the Christian Church, He taught no other way to 
heaven than to believe in Him as the Son of God, 
or as God manifest, repent of their sins, be bap- 
tized, and keep the commandments. And this is 
the only way He teaches now, at His second com- 
ing; only He now illustrates it with the spiritual 
light of the Word. 

Now, in the entire Christian Church one hun- 
dred and twenty years ago, these simple doctrines 
given by the Lord were nowhere taught as the 
true rules of life, and the way to obtain the soul’s 
salvation. The traditions of men had made the 
commandments of God of none effect, for they 
had divided God into three distinct persons, and 
established a “plan of salvation,” in which the 
second person suffered the penalty of the sins of 
the world, and sinners were justified and saved in 
a moment, through the gift of faith in the merits 
of that suffering. Herein all true ideas of the 
Lord and the way of life were lost sight of. Thus 
the Lord was truly absent, and the second coming 
became necessary. And the Lord, when on earth, 


116 THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 


prophetically said, concerning this state of the 
Church, that “unless those days should be short- 
ened no flesh should be saved.” 

And who cannot see that those days or states 
have been shortened, that the Tri-Personality of 
God, and the “plan of salvation” founded thereon, 
have ceased to be so generally popular in the 
Christian world, in the light in which they were 
then taught, and are being modified and changed ; 


and that thousands among the various sects are 


giving them up altogether, and are embracing the 
doctrine of one God in one person, and salvation 
by purity of heart, through repentance, faith, and 
a good life? What close observer does not notice, 
in the old established denominations, quite a dif- 
ference between the general preaching of to-day, 
and that of fifty, or even thirty years ago? Why 
has the once popular doctrine of a wrathful and 
vengeance-taking God been gradually disappear- 
ing from our pulpits, and one of love and mercy 
been taking its place? 

Now where, but from the Holy Word, does the 
new religious truth come from which is silently 
spreading throughout the world, reaching some 
of all denominations and sects, and inclining the 
minds to come together that see and love it?— 
such truth as one God in one person—the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, being the love, the 
wisdom, and the power of that God, and made 


: 
4 
j 


THE LORD'S SECOND ADVENT. 117 


manifest to men in Jesus Christ; and such further 
truth as a spiritual body within the natural, and 
no resurrection. of the material body ; no justifi- 
cation without charity and good works as well as 
faith ; no loss of any who die in infancy and child- 
hood; no instantaneous preparation for heaven; 
no regeneration without an honest, prayerful, and 
upright life, shunning evils as sins; no predesti- 
nation by the Lord, of any to hell; no heaven 
but in good hearts who love God and the neighbor, 
and are drawn together by that love; no hell but 
in evil hearts who love themselves supremely, and 
whose burning fire is anger, revenge, malice and 
ill-will ; no devil but the love of evil; and no way 
to heaven but to break off from sin by righteous- 
ness. All this is simple truth, plainly taught in 
the letter of the Word, and fully verified by the 
spiritual sense ; and many in all denominations are 
reeciving something of it without knowing that it 
ig the Lord, as the Word, making His second 
advent into human minds. 

Now, one century ago the Christian world did 
not sec these truths, nor was it in a state to receive 
them without a new revelation of them, by the 
light of the spiritual sense of the Word. For 
the minds of the people were then completely 
occupied with other doctrines which they supposed 
came from the Word; and therefore it required 
higher light to reveal them. And these doctrines 


118 THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 


had to be written out in books, and clearly. proved 
to the best reason of man from the Holy Word 
itself, to be unquestionably true, before any would 
embrace them. And they had to be made plain 
and practical as Divine rules of life, requiring a 
new course of action, which men could understand 
and obey until they should love the truth. 

It.is written that the Lord, as the truth of the 
Word, would come in the clouds of heaven. This 
is so said because the doctrines and literal sense 
of the Word, at that time, would be so dark and 
mysterious as to be like a dense cloud, hiding from 
view the light of heaven. The Lord, as the true 
light of the Word, comes in these clouds, dis- 
pelling the falsities with which selfish man had 
beclouded the literal sense ; so that man may now 
see the true doctrines, as given by the Lord to the 
Church at His first coming, and of which the 
people had lost sight. Thus He comes as the 
light of the Word, giving us true and reasonable 
views of the Trinity, the atonement, the fall, re- 
generation, resurrection, judgment, the Lord’s 
advents, and the spiritual world. And in this 
light all the doctrines of the Word are so clearly 
harmonious, that none can doubt their truth who 
rationally receives them. For, in this reception, 
the truths in the understanding operate upon the 
rational faculty until we see no way for true peace 
and rest for the soul, but in getting rid of the 


THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 1 ce) 


depravity and selfishness of the will; and we 
therefore resolve to reform our lives. 

In this reformation the truth passes from the 
rational faculty into the will, and shines from 
thence. We now love the truth, and give it forth 
filled with the fire of the soul, and beaming with 
heavenly light. It now becomes to us the Lord 
as the sun of righteousness in our heaven or 
internal mind, giving light to our earth or external 
mind, and is thus directing us in all the duties of 
life. | 

This is what is meant in Scripture by the Lord’s 
creating a new heaven and a new earth at His 
second coming. For the good heavenly or internal 
mind, and the good earthly or external mind, 
which He established in His people at His first 
coming, had passed away. According to prophecy, 
‘their sun of righteousness had become darkened, 
their moon of faith did not give her light, and 
their stars of knowledge of the true doctrines had 
fallen or departed from their minds. Hence the 
necessity of His coming again. Thus it may be 
seen that He is the Word of life to men, and that 
His advents are always into the human mind for 
the sake of establishing the kingdom of heaven 
there. 

The kingdom which He is now establishing, He 
ealls the New Jerusalem, which, according to sure 
prophecy, is to prevail until it is received by all 


120 THE LORDS SECOND ADVENT. 


nations and kindreds, and tongues and peoples. 
Thus the “Tabernacle of God is (to be) with men, 
and He will dwell with them, and they shall be 
His people, and God Himself shall be with them, 
their God.” 

Then the knowledge of the Lord will cover the 
earth as the waters cover the sea; and there will 
be no more saying, every man to his neighbor, 
Know ye the Lord, for all shall know Him, from 
the least to the greatest. 


DISCOURSE IX. 


THE RESURRECTION. 


‘¢ Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life: He that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and 
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” —JonHn 
x1. 25, 26. 


Tus text teaches plainly that the Scripture 
terms, —life, death, and resurrection,—have re- 
lation to the souls of men rather than to their 
material bodies. For the phrase, “ Whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die,” must 
refer to spiritual death. Because faith in the Lord 
does not prevent the natural body from dying. 
And so, when the Lord says, “He that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live,” He 
does not, of course, mean to teach that dead bodies 
can believe in Him and become alive again. 

True “faith” in the Lord keeps His command- 
ments, and thus “it works by love” to God and 
the neighbor, and purifies the heart from the love 
of self, and this makes the soul alive. He that 
liveth by such faith will never die, though he will 
put off the material body. The resurrection of 


(122) 


122 THE RESURRECTION. 


the text, then, is a resurrection from an evil to a 
good state of heart. And it is given, that we may 
look to the Lord’s life in the Mosh as an example 
for us to follow. 

God assumed, of Mary, our fallen nature, put- 
ting within it a pure “Divine human essence.” 
This human essence was then buried in a nature 
from Mary, which was dead in depravity. From 
this dead nature the Lord rose by putting off the 
body of sin and death, and putting on the full 
glory of the Father from within. Thus He opened 
up away before us, and became the leading and 
actual resurrection and the life of all who believe 
on Him and follow His example. 

In order properly to approach our subject, we 
should consider well the peculiar difference be- 
tween material and spiritual substance, until we 
see clearly that they are discretely distinct in* 
nature and character; that the spiritual belongs 
solely to the world of causes, and the material to 
the world of effects. Then we shall see that, 
though spiritual substances can flow down into 
material, and fill the world of effects with life, yet 
that material substances cannot ascend into the 
world of causes, nor can they be transmuted into 
spiritual substances. Material substance has no 
life. It isin itself dead. It owes its existence to 
the spiritual substances that are within it, mould- 
ing and modifying it, giving it its organic forms 


THE RESURRECTION. 123 


and all its beauty. Matter is the constant effect 
of a constant cause, and is entirely passive; and 
yet it is ever changing. Indeed matter is so gross 
and low in its quality, that it cannot hold the same 
organic form, even when filled with life. 

We are all the time putting off the worn-out 
substances of our material bodies, and building up 
the waste places with fresh substances. The par- 
ticles of matter which the human family is con- 
stantly throwing off, are appropriated to animal 
and vegetable formations, and are eaten again by 
men ; and so on, through all generations. There- 
fore the matter which composes any man’s body 
may have belonged to thousands of other human 
bodies, and may become parts of many thousands 
more. Ifsouls, then, claim their kindred dust, who ; 
will find his own? A robust man is attacked with 
consumption, and after a year’s sickness he dies a 
mere skeleton; his common body is mostly put 
off while he is living, and is gone into vegetables. 
Will not the remainder be subject to the same 
law? Indeed how soon, after the soul leaves the 
body, do we find the mass of the matter taking 
new organic forms of animal life. It is then no 
longer the matter of a man’s body, but that of 
worms. In fact the whole material world is but | 
the constantly changing body or house in which 
spiritual substances labor and operate, organizing, 


124 THE RESURRECTION. 


combining, and decomposing, continually, for the 
use of man. 

Now man’s spiritual substance is an organized 
spiritual body and soul, filled with influent life 
from God, and existing in full human form after 
he puts off the material body. He is created a 
“living soul” with a spiritual organism, inde- 
structible and everlasting. For, by reason of his 
freedom and rationality, God’s truth can be incor- 
porated into his understanding, and His good into 
his will. And as the good and truth of the Lord 
are eternal, living substances, so by this incorpo- 
ration they give an eternal and indestructible or- 
ganization and form to man. But as the orders 
of creation, below man, cannot rationally under- 
stand God’s truth, and affectionately receive His 
good, therefore they do not become permanently 
organized spiritual bodies. Their life, therefore, 
ceases to manifest their identical forms after the 
decomposition of their bodies. 


Man is the crowning object of the creation, — 


the sum-total of all God’s works. All other cre- 
ated things are but man’s servants and school-books, 
new forms and editions of which are every day ap- 
pearing, with illustrations suited to his constantly 
changing states and wants. Man, then, has an or- 
ganized, substantial, indestructible spiritual body, 
filling the natural body in all its parts. And the 
determined action of the will and understanding 


THE RESURRECTION. 125 


often exhibit the wonderful powers of this spiritual 
body. Indeed, it is often found to be too strong 
for the material body. Many material bodies have 
been broken by the powerful organic action of the 
spiritual that infilled them. Many a blood-vessel 
has been rent, many a heart been burst, by a single 
effort of the will; thus showing that the spiritual 
organism is the stronger of the two. Thus the 
spirit of man has an organism which can exist after 
the destruction of the material body, and this as- 
sures us of a substantial spiritual world. Indeed, 
what would that world be without forms and or- 
ganizations? Have God and angels no forms? 
Could a Being without form produce beings with 
forms? Could a Being without eyes make eyes? 
Has Paul no head? If not, does he know any- 
thing? 

Now it is not difficult to conceive it possible for 
angels to have spiritual bodies of such pure sub- 
stance as not to be seen in this natural light, with 
these material eyes, — substance too pure to reflect 
the material rays of the sun, and yet which readily 
reflect spiritual light so as to be seen by eyes 
adapted to that light. This is not against reason. 
Indeed it is most reasonable and philosophical. 
And it is the only rational ground upon which we 
can account for the presence of guardian angels, - 
whom we cannot behold with our natural eyes. 
Now while all this is reasonable, yet it is directly 


126 THE RESURRECTION. 


opposed to reason to suppose that there can be 
intelligent beings without forms and organiza- 
tions. 

But the Scriptures afford abundant evidence of 
the truth of the doctrine of spiritual bodies and 
forms. Moses and Elias were seen by Peter, 
James, and John, at the transfiguration. John, 
on Patmos, saw an angel who told him he was one 
of the prophets. Angels were seen at the sepul- 
chre, and were called men in shining garments. 
Indeed, all angels have first been men in the flesh. 
And Paul declares to the Corinthians, that “ there 
is a natural body and there is a spiritual body,” 
and that we have them both in this world; and 
that when the earthly house is dissolved, we have 
a building of God, the spiritual house, which will 
be eternal in the heavens; that, at death, the nat- 
ural body is sown and the spiritual body is raised ; 
that the body sown is not the body that shall be; 
that the natural body is dissolved, and the spir- 
itual body rises from it; that flesh and blood can- 
not inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption 
inherit incorruption. And Paul further teaches, 
most definitely, that the material body is not the 
man, but is only his earthly house, his tabernacle 
of clay, his mere clothing which sometimes be- 
comes a burden; hence he says, “ We that are in 
these tabernacles do groan being burdened, not 
that we would be unclothed.” We generally want 


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THE RESURRECTION. 127 


to keep the house of clay as long as we can. But 
when the trump of God calls us into the other 
life, Paul says, “We shall all be changed in the 
twinkling of an eye ”— not the tabernacles, but we 
that are in them; and that we shall be “raised 
incorruptible”; that all will be so raised to a spir- 
itual existence when we leave this. world,— all, 
both the quick and the dead, or the good and the 
bad. For, by the quick are meant those who 
have turned from their evils and are spiritually 
alive to righteousness; and, by the dead, those 
who are still in their evils, dead in sin. All, 
when the last trump sounds, must be raised from 
the corruptible body of clay, in a spiritual body 
which is incorruptible. And so the last trump 
- of every man is his summons to leave this world. 
Thus all are changed from a natural to a spiritual 
mode of existence, by putting off the material 
body. 

Now we may look in vain for any declaration 
of the Scriptures teaching that the material body 
rises; while, on the contrary, they teach that it 
does not rise, but that the body that is raised is a 
spiritual body. What the true resurrection is, 
the Lord teaches in Luke, where He says, “Now 
that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in 
the bush, when he called the Lord the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; 
for God is not the God of the dead, but of the 


128 THE RESURRECTION. 


living.” Here the Lord teaches that Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, have risen from the dead; yet 
they left their bodies in this world. 

But resurrection, in its higher sense, is some- 
thing far more important for us to understand 
than the rising of the spiritual body from the ma- 
terial, at death. It is the resurrection from the love 
of evil to the love of good. The other resurrec- 
tion we need not trouble about; we are all sure of 
that ; yet it is well to understand it. But this is 
of vital importance. It was spoken at the tomb 
of Lazarus, to correct the false ideas of Martha. 
For when Jesus said to her, “Thy brother shall 
rise again,” Martha said, “I know that he will rise 
again in the resurrection at the last day.” But 
Jesus, in order to teach the true resurrection, said, 
“TI am the resurrection and the life. He that 
believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he 
live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die.” This is the real resurrection. 
There is, in the highest sense, no other. When 
the spiritual body casts off the natural at 
death, it does not, by that event, pass into any 
higher state of thoughts and affections. And yet 
it is in a certain sense raised into a new mode of 
existence, simply because it has put off what pre- 
vented the senses of the spiritual body from taking 
cognizance of spiritual things. 

All those passages in the Word which speak of 


ne a 


ae, ee 


— 
eae ap 5 


ee fens 


— 


ete ak 
Ra 


re 
nm a 


(lineata aS BS 


— 


ge 


eo 


THE RESURRECTION. 129 


graves being opened and persons coming out of | 
them, refer to states of mind, and to changes of 
states. Graves denote unclean, or dead, or con- 
fined, or torpid, or sleepy states of mind. And 
persons in the flesh are sometimes represented as 
dead and buried in those graves. And to such 
the Lord says, “Awake, thou that sleepest, 
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee 
light.” Now the Lord’s resurrection was into the 
spiritual world, and it had a powerful influence 
upon minds in their graves of doubt and restraint, 
both in that world and this. So that, as recorded, 
the graves were opened, and many bodies of the 
saints which slept arose and came out of their 
graves, after His resurrection, and went into 
the holy city and appeared unto many.” ‘Thus 
there was in the world of spirits an eleva- 
tion or resurrection of faithful persons from dark 
and confined states to free and luminous ones, 
which carried them into heaven. For the glori- 
fied Lord’s resurrection brought new light into the 
world of spirits. It also had a strong influence 
upon many good persons in this world. And a 
person here is a saint so far as he is regenerated. 
And there may have been many persons:on earth, 
at the time of the crucifixion, who were being 
regenerated through the teaching and spirit of 
the Lord, but who, by means of the disturbed 
state of things in the apparent loss of their Lord, 
9 


130 THH RESURRECTION. 


had fallen into states of doubt and suspense ; but 
who, by the Lord’s resurrection, were aroused 
from their slumbers, and came out of their graves 
of doubt, and went into Jerusalem with new zeal 
and courage. The Lord refers to this kind of 
resurrection in the fifth chapter of John, say ing 
“ The hour cometh and now is when the dead shall 
hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that 
hear shall live.” Now all may see that there can 
be no resurrection of material bodies in all this. 
Indeed, it has been ascertained that eleven-thir- 
teenths of the human body are aérial, and go into 
the atmosphere to perform general uses to uni- 
versal nature ; entering the trees through their 
leaves and the animals through their lungs, as 
wellas by the food they eat. 

But what seems to be conclusive evidence, in 
many minds, of the resurrection of natural bodies, 
is the Lord’s resurrection, and the declaration 
that we shall all be raised like unto Christ’s glo- 
rious body. And from the literal sense alone, 
without any knowledge of the spiritual sense and 
of the discrete degree between mind and matter, 
it would seem, in the Lord’s case, on a cursory 
examination, that the natural body did rise, and 
that He actually appeared unto His disciples in 
that body. But if, as the apostle declares, we 
are “sown a natural body and raised a spiritual 
body,” and that we do not sow the body that 


THE RESURRECTION, 131 


“shall be,” or the body that is to be raised, and 
that still we are raised “like unto Christ’s glorious 
body,” why then, of course, He was raised a spir- 
— itual body, and not a natural. | 

True, we are told in the writings that He “rose 
with the body He had in the world.” And so He 
did. For He had His divine body, or humanity, 
when He was in the world, and He rose with it 
when He put off the material body. The writings. 
do not say that He rose with the material body He 
had in the world. But they do say that He put 
off the material human taken from the mother, and 
put on a Divine human from the Father. (D. L. 
35.) And they further say that “when the Lord 
had made His whole human Divine, then His flesh 
was nothing but Divine good, and His blood 
Divine truth; that, in the Divine, nothing ma- 
terial is to be understood.” (3813, 5200.) And 
who can doubt it when He appeared unto Hig dis- 
ciples when the doors were shut. Besides, the 
body with which the Lord rose was too pure for 
the sun to shine upon and reflect its form. No 
natural eye saw the Lord after His resurrection. 
No unbelieving Jew saw Him. None but disciples 
saw Him, and they only with their spiritual eyes, 
and those eyes the Lord opened for them. 

The Lord is our life, we exist by life constantly 
_ given from Him. And whenever we are in proper 
_ states of mind, and He sees a use in it, He can 


132 THE RESURRECTION. 


open our spiritual sight. It was necessary that 
His disciples should know that He had risen from 
the sepulchre, otherwise the Gospel would have 
been incomplete. And He used such means as 
would most definitely establish the fact in the nat- 
ural minds of His followers. Therefore He 
showed Himself to “above five hundred of the ~ 
brethren at once.” The minds of the people of 
that age were very natural. There was but little 
spiritual thought. His disciples had but little. 
They saw not the spiritual light of the Word. 
They did not understand what He meant by their 
eating His flesh and drinking His blood, nor by 
His words being spirit and life. We told them 
that He had many things to say unto them, but 
they could not bear them then. 

The Lord is said to have been seen for forty 
days after His resurrection. And yet nobody 
knew where He lodged, or where He got His food 
or His clothing. He appeared occasionally to His 
disciples, and then vanished out of their sight. 
And when He did appear, His disciples some- ~ 
times did not know Him. Would not His natural 
body have been at once recognized by His mother 
and all His disciples? 

But it is said that His remarks to Thomas are 
conclusive evidence that He had His material body. 
But we should bear in mind that Thomas’s ideas 
were very natural. He had said, “ Except I shall 


THE RESURRECTION. 133 


see in His hands the print of the nails, and put 
my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust 
my hand into His side, I will not believe.” But 
when we consider that this was a scene in the 
spiritual world, where all go in the resurrection ; 
that the Lord was seen only by spiritual eyes, and 
that the universal law of spiritual vision is such 
that men see the Lord according to their states 
and qualities, we may then Be tand that 
Thomas could not have seen the Lord as He was 
in himself, but only as He appeared to Thomas’s 
natural state. (A. E. 539, A. C. 1861.) And 
so His character mentally appeared to the states 
of people in this world, to the froward, as froward ; 
to the upright man, as upright; to the pure in 
_ heart, as pure. 

True, the Lord said again to His still doubting 
disciples, “Handle me and see, for a spirit hath 
not flesh and bones, as you see me have.” But 
when we understand that by His flesh, in the 
spiritual world where He then was, is meant 
Divine Good, and by His: bones, Divine truth 
(38812), we then see that a spirit hath not flesh 
and bones as the Lord has, for His are. purely 
Divine. His flesh is the Divine good, which He 
says we must eat, or have no life in us. 

But we should understand that the Lord’s Di- ~ 
vine HTuman was brought down, in perfect fulness, 
into the entire ultimates of everything human, so 


_- 


134 THE RESURRECTION. 


that He fills with Divinity the lowest possible 
sphere of humanity, which enables Him to reach, 
everywhere, the lowest of human beings. His 
good and truth were thus brought down into the’ 
place of the entire maternal human, which was put 
off, so that, instead of material flesh and blood, 
and bones, there is Divine good and truth in the 
human plane of life on earth — God with us.: 

But it is further written, that He ate of a piece 
of broiled fish, and of a honey-comb, after His 
resurrection. Now the subject before us is pro- 
foundly deep; we, at this age, can know but little 
about the particulars. But the mind will inquire. 
And we have a right to reason from the positive 
truths of the Word, already known to us; being. 
careful to draw no conclusions at variance with 
fundamental law. And as there is a discrete de- 
gree between the material and spiritual worlds, it 
is not to be supposed that the Lord’s resurrection- 
body ate material fish. But we may consider that. 
fish denote scientific truths; and that fire, with 
which fish are broiled, denotes luve, and that 
honey-comb, from its sweetness, denotes pleasant- 
ness; and that ky the piece of broiled fish, of 
which the Lord ate, is meant the external truth of 
the Word in union with the good of love, which 
gives pleasantness. (562, 7852.) And as the 
Lord’s Divinity was still clothed in a finite spirit- 
ual form, which the disciples could see with their 


THE RESURRECTION. By 


spiritual eyes, and which was to be put off at His 
ascension, therefore the disciples might see that 
finite form receive the things to which the fish and 
honey-comb correspond. For we should bear in 
mind that this eating of the broiled fish and honey- 
comb, was a scene in the spiritual world where 
there are no material things; and where the Lord 
could not be seen by eyes that sce material things. 
And as He put off this finite spiritual form, in the 
spiritual world, He was no longer visible to the 
spiritual sight of the disciples. This was His 
ascension. 

But the final question which is always asked, 
and is never satisfactorily answered, is, What be- 
eame of the Lord’s body? The Lord, for the last 
years of His life in the world, as He was becom- 
ing glorified and pure, was all the while putting 
off the infirm human, received from Mary, and 
putting on a Divine human from the Father 
within ; so that we can know neither the nature nor 
the amount of the material substance Jaid in the 
sepulchre. But as the Lord rose from the ma- 
terial body, it was unquestionably dissipated, for 
its form was gone, and nothing but spiritual sub- 
stance could enter the spiritual world. 

And here we may leave the matter, and look at 
the more important things which the Lord has defin-- 
itely told us. He has told us that the Lord Jesus 
Christ is the mighty God, the everlasting Father ; 


136 THE RESURRECTION. 


that besides Him there is no God; that He is 
omnipresent, infinite, and uncreated, self-existent 
and eternal; the Creator of all things, the Begin- 
ning and the Ending, the First and the Last, the 
Immanuel; and therefore He must be infinitely 


above the fluctuations and changes of all material 


substances. | 

We may therefore settle down in the absolute 
conclusion that, as the spiritual world is the world 
of causes and the material world the world of 
effects, therefore natural bodies can never rise into 
the spiritual plane ; that effects can never ascend to 
causes; that, though spiritual things can produce 
and descend into natural things, yet natural things 
can never produce spiritual; that the brain does 
not produce the soul, nor the universe God; that 
the Lord’s works are onward; that the butterfly 
does not return into the chrysalis, nor the hen into 
the egg-shell, nor angels into bodies of clay. 


DISCOURSE X. 


THE JUDGMENT. 


“The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg- 
ment unto the Son.”— Joun vy. 22. 

‘¢T judge no man.” — Joun vur. 15. 

“* He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one 
that judgeth him: the Word that I have spoken, the same shall 
judge him in the last day.”—Joun xu. 48. 


OnE of the great leading doctrines of the Word 
is the judgment. It isa doctrine at once philo- 
sophical and beautiful. After having been looked 
upon, as the judgment for a long time was, as a 
stern act of Divine power, executed upon men, 
either as individuals or communities, sometimes 
in this world, as special punishments for their sins, 
and eternally in the world to come, the true light 
of the Holy Word, at this age, on this subject, 
comes into the mind like a heavenly cordial for 
the soul. For it shows that the judgment, in every 
proper light in which it can be viewed, is a bless- 
ing from the Lord, upon all that receive it. 

Few minds seem to have been aware of the 
true spirit of the Word on this subject. Even in 
the literal sense alone the judgments of the Lord 


(137) 


138 THE JUDGMENT. 


are mentioned as matters of great rejoicing and 
delight. They are even prayed for. Thus it is 
written, “ Arise, O Lord, judge the earth.” “Let 
Mount Zion rejoice and the daughters of Judah be 
glad because of thy judgments.” “My soul 
breaketh for the longing it hath for thy judgments 
at all times.” “ At midnight I will rise and give 
thanks because of thy judgments.” “Quicken me 
according to thy judgments.” Thus are the judg- 
ments spoken of as something heavenly and 
delightful. And so it is written, “ With trumpets 
and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before 
the Lord the King. Let the floods clap their 
hands, let the hills be joyful together before the 
Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth, and with 
righteousness shall He judge the world and the 
people with His Truth.” True, it is written that 
“the ungodly shail not stand in the judgment”; 
and that “God will execute judgment upon the 
wicked.” But it does not hurt the wicked to be 
judged; it does not make them any worse; it 
only decides what they are. And they are always 
_ better off for having passed through the judgment 
and found their proper position in society. 
According to the prophecy in Matthew, the 
last judgment is to take place at the second com- 
ing of the Lord; when, “ Before him will be gath- 
ered all nations, and He shall separate them one 
from another as a shepherd divideth the sheep 


THE JUDGMENT. 139 


from the goats.” And the same judgment is also 
described in the Apocalypse, saying, “And I saw 
the dead, small and great, stand before God: and 
the books were opened; and another book was 
opened, which was the Book of Life: and the 
dead were judged out of those things which were 
written in the books, according to their works. 
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; 
and death and hell gave up the dead that were in 
them; and they were all judged, every man ac- 
cording to his works. And death and hell were 
cast into the lake of fire. And whosoever was not 
found written in the Book of Life was cast into 
the lake of fire.” 

Now before we can have any rational idea of 
this judgment, we must have true ideas of the 
Lord, and of His second coming, and of the dead. 
and of the resurrection. These doctrines have 
already been explained in the foregoing discourses ; 
and those who understood them, are prepared for 
the following illustrations. For when they see 
that there is but one God, and that the Father, . 
Son, and Holy Spirit, are that God in one Person; 
and that the Father principle of that God. is love, 
that the Son principle is the truth, or Word, which 
that love speaks, and that the Holy Spirit is the 
energy or power of that God; they will then see _ 
that it is the Great Jehovah that makes this second 
coming, and that He appears as the truth, in the 


140 THE JUDGMENT. 


spiritual sense of the Word, and that He thus 
comes into the minds of men, and that He comes 
for judgment. 

If the human mind were all right, if it needed 
no judgment, no light of truth, the Lord would be 
already in it. He would not have tocome. It is 
because there is, at the present day, such a want 
of a true knowledge of what the Lord is, and such 
darkness and doubt as to His Divinity and true 
qualities, that His coming as the Divine ‘Truth is 
necessary. He comes to restore to us a true 
knowledge of Himself, and the true doctrines of 
the Word, and to enable us to apply the truth to 
our lives. Thus He comes a light into the world ; 
and He comes for judgment. He comes to show 
us our evils by the clearer light of His Word, that 
we may see their depravity and judge and con- 
demn them ourselves. Therefore, though the 
most High God is surely the Judge of all the 
earth, yet it is by the truth that He judges. It is 
therefore written that the Father judgeth no man, 
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. 
This is because it is not the Father, or love-prin- 
ciple, that judges, but the truth, or the Son-prin- 
ciple. And even the Lord Himself, as God 
manifest in Person, says, I judge no man. The 
Word that I have spoken, that shall judge him. 

The judgment is therefore executed by the re- 
ception of the truth into the mind of the ma. 


Tee 


THE JUDGMENT. I4I 


that is judged, enabling him to see his evils and — 
condemn them, and then to oppose them and have 
them removed. And where the mind of man does 
not receive some truth and examine his heart by it, 
there is with him no judgment, and no coming of 
the Lord to him. If, in the examination, the man 
sees the heinousness of his evils, and condemns 
them and fights against them, it will prove to him 
a glorious judgment, passing him to the right hand 
of God, or into the powerful presence of His love. 
But if he receives the light with indifference, 
looks at his evils but carelessly, and decides that 
they are what he loves and wants to keep, and 
he will not therefore break off from them by 
righteousness, then he judges in favor of his evils, 
and passes to the left hand, or into the false 
sphere of his own self-love. 

All this is a process that may take place in this 
world. And the Lord, as the true Way of Life, 
is now coming for this purpose; therefore the 
process of regeneration is carried on entirely by 
a judgment. It has always been so. The Lord 
came the first time for judgment. He said to His 
disciples, “For judgment am I come into the 
world.” He also said, “Now is the judgment 
of this world; now is the prince of this world 
cast out.” Indeed the Lord never comes to man 
but for judgment; for where no judgment is 
necessary, there the Lord igs already presez*_ 


142 THE JUDGUENT. 


When the Lord came the first time to establish 
the Christian Church, there was no knowledge 
of Him in the Jewish Church. And He came a 
light into the world. Thus the redemption was 
wrought by a judgment; therefore it was written, 
“Zion shall be redeemed with judgment.” And . 
the Christian Church was established with judg- 
ment; hence it was written, ‘‘The Lord will 
establish His kingdom with judgment.” “He 
will purge Jerusalem with judgment. The Lord 
hath filled Zion with judgment. Let us come 
near to Jerusalem with judgment.” 

We see by this that the life and power of the 
judgment is the truth of the commandments oper- 
ating in the minds that are judged. Therefore, 
we are commanded to keep the Lord’s judgments, 
to do His judgments. That is, we must keep or 
do what the truth of the Word judges to be right. 
Hence the Lord says the wicked have not kept His 
judgments. In Hosea it is written, “Thy judg- 
ments are as the light”; thus showing that they 
are Divine Truth from the Word to be received, 
understood, and obeyed. It is through the judg- 
ment that the people, as individuals, or as a 
church, are wedded to the Lord as the Word. 
For the Lord says of His Church, in prophecy, 
*{ will betroth thee unto Me in judgment. I will 
come near to you in judgment.” 

Now the truths of the Word are of great vari- 


THE JUDGMENT. 143 


etics, real and apparent, adapted to all the various ~~ 


states of men and angels; and the Lord, as that 
truth, comes to all that will receive Him, accord- 
ing to their states. At His first advent, He came 
as the literal truth of the Word. That was as 
high a light as the people of that age could bear, 
though Paul and some others felt and said much 
about the spirit of the Word; but they saw not 
much of the spiritual sense. The age had not 
come for opening the Word by the science of cor- 
respondence. The plain letter of the command- 
ments believed and lived, enabled them to see 
their evils, repent of them and forsake them, and 
thus, through the judgment of the truth, they 
were gradually regenerated. But when, in the 
process of time, God was said to be in three dis- 
tinct persons, and the vicarious sacrifice was estab- 
lished, in which the second person bore the pun- 
ishment of man’s transgressions; and when, in 
this way, the traditions of men had made the com- 
mandiments of God of none effect in the remission 
of sins, by teaching that men are at once pardoned, 
regenerated and justified through faith alone, as 
the gift of God, in the merits of that sacrifice, 
then the people gradually lost true ideas of God’s 
qualities and character, and also of the doctrines 
of the Word and the way of life; and thus “ mys= 
tery” became “written” upon the “forehead” of 
the Church. And this dark state was fully reached 


144. THE JUDGMENT. 


over a century ago. The prophecies of the New 
Testament clearly describe it, and how it was 
reached, and emphatically declared that, “unless 
those days should be shortened, no flesh should be 
saved”; and they also clearly point out the sec- 
ond coming of the Lord, as the truth, for that 
purpose. He comes as the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah, to loose the seals and open the Holy Word 
to its spiritual sense. And this spiritual sense re- 
stores the lost true doctrines of the literal sense. 
The literal sense, before this coming, had become 
as dark clouds of mysteries in the minds of men. 
The spiritual sense now illumines those clouds, 
and makes the literal sense clear. These are the 
clouds in which it is declared that the Lord would 
come. And as the true light of the spiritual sense 
is restored, the watchmen are seeing eye to eye, 
and the prophecy is gradually being fulfilled when 
there will be * One Lord, one Faith, and one Bap- 
tism.” For, as the spiritual sense brings out to 
view the true literal doctrines, and as they have 
been making their way into the world for a cen- 
tury, so, many of all denominations are, no doubt, 
receiving something of that light, who do not yet 
see much of the spiritual sense, but who are en- 
tering into life by keeping the commandments $ 
and thus the Lord is performing the last judg- 
ment ia them. 

This judgment commences with a man upon the 


THE JUDGMENT. 145 


rational reception of the light which shows the 


true way of life, as seen in the literal doctrines of _ 


the Word. For as those doctrines are brought to 
bear upon the rational faculty of man, in their 
philosophic light, he becomes convinced beyond a 
doubt of their truth; and as he turns their light in 
upon his soul, it brings his evils to view, and the 
judgment commences by his condemning those 
evils and resolving to oppose their action. After 
we put off the material body and pass into the 
spiritual world, the truth, in our minds, will, no 
doubt, perform its work more rapidly ; so that we 
shall soon be able to decide what people are most 
congenial to our states; and then we shall pass to 
our appropriate abode. 

Now it is declared in prophecy that, at this 
judgment, the books are opened ; and that another 
book is opened, which is the Book of Life; and 
that men are judged out of the Book of Life ac- 
cording to their work. The Book of Life which 
is opened is the Holy Word bringing out its clear 
light ; and the truth of that Word is the Judge. 
The books that are opened are the books of men’s 
minds. As the clear truth of the Word enters 
those books, it gradually exposes to view, as men 
are prepared to see them, all the various principles 
and qualities of the soul. For in those books are 
minutely recorded, during our lives, all the desires 
of the soul, whether good or evil, true or false. 

10 


I 46 THE JUDGMENT. 


And in all minds in this world, who are now be- 
ing regenerated, the second coming of the Lord 
is opening those books, and they are using the 


truth in judgment against their evils. And who ° 


that turns the scrutinizing light in upon the evils 
_ of his own heart, does not ery out “ Unclean ” ? 


Thus we live in the great judgment-day —the © 


day of the last, the final judgment. It commenced 
over a century ago, at the opening of the holy 
Word to the spiritual sense, by the second coming 
of the Lord as the truth of that sense; and it 
will continue as long as there are souls to be 
judged. When an individual mind receives these 
truths of the Word, and yields to their influence, 
his book of life is opened, page after page, as he 
overcomes his evils; and the light increases until 
all his transgressions and vile desires have been 
seen, judged as evil, and put away. He is then 
regenerated and prepared for heaven. But this 
regeneration is the work of his life; and is rarely 
completed, by any man of this age, while he lives 
in this world. But when he puts off the body 
and enters into the light of the other world, he is 
in a condition for a clearer examination, and as he 
passes on in the judgment until the work is fin- 
ished, he finally enters the society of the angels. 
But if, in this life, man will not enter upon the 
work of the judgment when he may, if he will 
not regard the truth which he has, but turns from 


a eee es ee Te ee ee ea ee ee ee 


Keaas 
AF SOIC 


4 
< 


THE JUDGMENT. 147 


its influences and justifies himself in its violations, 
and leaves this world in the supreme love of himself, 
and opposed to the heavenly way which the truth 
points out to him, he will, as a matter of course, 
decide, when he comes into the spiritual world, 
that he loves himself more than the Lord, and his 
own ways more than the Lord’s ways, and hence 
he will, from choice, enter into the society of his 
like. This is in accordance with the laws, the 
philosophy, and the experience of human nature, 
in this world. 

Now, by means of this judgment, the individual 
mind, whether good or bad, is reduced to a con- 
sistency in itself. Everything not in accordance 
with its ruling love, is seen and judged as not be- 
longing to that mind, and hence it is rejected and 
put away. Thus after a mind passes the judg- 
ment, in the next life, it is no longer a mixture 
of goods and evils. The evil man puts off the 
goods and truths which he did not love, but which 
he had been using hypocritically in order to ap- 
pear respectable, but which are really no part of 
his life. And the good man gets rid of the re- 
maining falses and evils which cling about the 
Paeaval mind, and he is now an angel, willing to 
speak and act from the spirit of ie. Lord. Thus 
the judgments of God are no injury to any being, 
but, on the contrary, are a blessing to all. fe 
deed, all the works and ways of God to men are 


148 THE JUDGMENT. 


blessings. Human nature is the author of all its 
evils. 

The philosophy of this view of the judgment 
may be seen from the fact that, when the Lord 
should make His second coming, it was to be at- 
tended witha general resurrection, as well as a 
general judgment. And from the true Scripture 
doctrine, there can be no resurrection of dead 
bodies of men out of the earth. The general res- 
urrection, therefore, at the last day or last age of 
the Church, must be the general rising of men’s 
souls from the love of self and the world to the 
love of God and the neighbor —the resurrection 
from spiritual death to spiritual life, as the Lord 
makes His coming, as the truth, into the general 
mind of communities, at this, His last and long 
day of judgment. For it is to be continued until 
the work on earth shall become general — until all 
shall know the Lord, from the least unto the 
ereatest. And the scene mentioned in the Apoc- 
alypse, of the general judgment, where the dead, 
small and great, stand before God, and the books 
are opened, and the sea gives up its dead, and 
death and hell give up the dead that are in them, 
is all a mental scene in the spiritual world; and, 
as it regards individuals, it takes place in every 
mind that passes happily through the judgment. 

When this last judgment commenced, over a 
century ago, all in the world of spirits were judged 


ee eee ee 


THE JUDGMENT. 149 


and passed to their final homes. And every day 
since has been a great judgment-day. Think of 
the immense number who daily go into the spiritual 
world from all earths,—one hundred thousand 
from our little earth. No imagination can con- 
eeive of the incalculable mass that each of us shall 
meet at the judgment, in the next world. But 
though this description, in the Apocalypse, of the 
general judgment, refers to a scene in the spiritual 
world, yet it is more profitable to us to consider 
it in its relation particularly to what takes place 
in the individual minds that are judged, from the 
commencement of the judgment in this world un- 
til it is completed. In this light, by the dead, 
small and great, is meant every evil or dead prin- 
ciple of the mind of every shade and quality — 
the little sins and the big ones, all brought to 
judgment. In this judgment these evils all stand 
before the truth of the Word, they are all brought 
up and examined, and their quality is tested by 
the power of the truth. The sea which gives up 
its dead is the sea of knowledge in the mind that 
is judged. A man’s knowledge is his sea. There- 
fore every individual has his particular sea; and 
every country or community its general sea of 
human knowledge. And this sea is the element 
in which men move and operate, just as much as 
the atmosphere is that in which the birds fly or 
the water that in which fish swim. Beyond the 


150 THE JUDGMENT. 


shores of their sea of knowledge, no man or 
people can move. There is no other sea for dead 
souls to be in, but the sea of human knowledge. 
Dead natural bodies are not dead men. There are 
no dead men in the natural sea. The particular 
sea of an individual gives up its dead when, in 
looking into his mind, he sees the evils and falses 
— the dead principles of his understanding — and 
puts them away. And thus, if a man is faithful, 
as the Lord comes to him, his death and hell may 
give up the dead that are in them. Death and 
hell are in every bad man. His will is his hell. 
There is where the fires of anger and malice burn. 
And his evils are the dead principles of that hell. 
And as the sea of his understanding gives up the 
dead principles that are in it, so the death and hell 
of his will should give up the dead principles that 
are in them, while the opportunity lasts. 

But if he resists and turns away from the spirit 
of truth, as the Lord thus comes to him for judg- 
ment, his ruling love will surely be evil. And 
when he goes into the world of spirits, the general 
sea of the people there will give him up as dead, 
and he will go with his death and hell into the 
lake of fire, or into the society of the evil, whose 
Jake or sphere is filled with evil loves, which are 
the fires of hell. ‘This is what is meant by death 
and hell being cast into the lake of fire. 

Thus we should see to it that our sea and death 


THE JUDGMENT. I5I 


and hell give up their dead, as the Lord, in the 
spiritual truth of the Word, comes to judgment. 
For, as we thus receive Him, repenting of our 
sins and giving them up, the judgment will go 
regularly on through life; every sheep, or good 
principle of our mind, will be separated from the 
goats, or false principles, by the clear light of the 
truth in our judgment, and the goods and truths 
will come together, and the soul will be purified 
and built up in the image of our God. This is 
indeed the great final judgment of the world, 
which is now before us all. We are permitted to 
live in the great judgment-day. And as we make 
use of the light given, such must be our destiny. 
“Te that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that 
his deeds may be made manifest that they are 
wrought in God.” “I am the light of the world,” 
saith the Lord; “he that followeth me shall not 
walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of 
Life.” 


DISCOURSE XI. 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


‘‘T am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets.” 
- Rev. xx. 9. 


Turs is a declaration of one of the prophets to 
John, when on the Isle of Patmos. ‘The prophet 
had, long before, put off the material body, and 
gone into the spiritual world. Thus we here learn 
that the people who leave this world are substan- 
tial human beings in the next, without material 
bodies. 

This instruction is a “Revelation of Jesus 
Christ,” who is the light and life of that world. 
And as He is the one great source of all being, 
infinite in love, wisdom, and power, so He is a 
spiritual being, existing in the spiritual world; 
and all true spiritual knowledge comes primarily 
from lim. It is therefore written that “ All things 
were made by Him, and that without Him was not 
anything made that was made.” Men are so cre- 
ated as to learn spiritual things from Him, and to 
be united to Him by goods and truths from Him, 
and thence to exist forever. Man in this world 


(152) 


a al Big ri RE es a 


Se let 


ee ee 
a saa 


‘ tan 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. i? 


could never have known anything of the spiritual — 


world, of God or angels, or of a life after the death 
of the body, if God, as a kind heavenly Father, 
had not taught him. 

But after knowing these things, man, asa race 
on earth, may lose that knowledge. The human 
family, after having had a knowledge of spiritual 


' things, so fell into selfishness, depravity, and nat- 


uralism, as to lose all true knowledge of the 
higher elements of: being, and believe only in this 
natural mode of existence. This man did, even 
with the holy Word in his hands. And he became 
so blind to the truth that he could not be taught 
spiritual things but through a new revelation of 
them from the Lord Himself. Such was the state 
of the religious world when the Lord came in the 
flesh. 

At this coming He brought life and immortality 
to light, and taught plainly of the spiritual world, 
and of what constitutes true spiritual life and 
heavenly order and happiness in man, and how he 
is to be regenerated and saved. But before 1800 
years had passed away, the true character of this 
teaching was lost sight of by men even with the 
Gospel in their hands. For, though they still 
believed in a God, and human souls, and the spir- 
itual world, and heaven and hell, and regeneration, 
yet true ideas of these things were completely 


beclouded. What the true qualities of God, or 


154 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


of human souls, or of the spiritual world and the 
way of life were, men did not see. Falsity or 
darkness of views on these things, universally 
prevailed 120 years ago. Men had then no dis- 
tinct thought of God, or of departed spirits, or of 
the souls of men, or of the spiritual world. What 


these things were, or where they were, was in — 


profound darkness. Life was a mystery, spiritual 
substance an enigma, God a Being “ without body 
or parts,” and yet in “three distinct Persons,” and 
the departed souls of men were formless and in- 
conceivable somethings, waiting a reunion with 
their cast-off bodies, in order to give them tan- 
gible identity. 

But as men are designed for a higher mode of 
life, it is essentially necessary to their true happi- 
ness that they understand spiritual things, and the 
laws of true spiritual life. Therefore the Lord, 
in mercy, again revealed them. He made a second 
coming, as Divine truth, over a century ago, by 
revealing the spiritual sense of the Word, whereby 
man has again an opportunity of becoming ac- 
quainted with the true nature of spiritual sub- 
stances, and thence of his God, and of the souls 
of men and of angels, and of the spiritual world. 

But if man is a spiritual being, designed for 
spiritual life, how can he lose spiritual knowledge? 
It should be known that there is no innate source 
of life or knowledge in man belonging to him as 


SY Se ae a etiam 
Saas = se . <- As 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 155 


his own identi ; hence he is not God. He has 
nothing from which anything whatever can be 
evolved or developed into knowledge, or even into 
thoughts or feelings. He ig simply a recipient of 
human life, and of spiritual principles, with free- 
dom and rationality to use them, for the building 
up of a life and character which is to exist forever. 
His heavenly Father, in Hig Holy Word, has made 
known to him the true way of life, and taughthim the 
consequences of either regarding or disregarding 
the Divine law. God is constantly giving him, by 


Influx, the elements which, if properly used, will 


make him an angel of heaven. And he has free- 
dom and power given him to so use them, or to 
pervert them to selfish purposes. If he perverts 
them they will make him an evil spirit. In order 
that man might know the laws of the Spiritual - 
_ world, and the true nature of spiritual existence, 
- God has spoken to patriarchs, prophets, and 
apostles, in an audible voice, and to some of them 
He has given visions into the spiritual world. 
These instructions and visions have been recorded 
in the holy Word for our benefit. Isaiah’s:‘wholo 
Prophecy is called, “The vision of Isaiah.” The 
_ Apocalypse is an entire vision of things seen and 
heard by John in the spiritual world. Ezekiel, 
and Daniel, and Paul, had visions, 
And how, at an age of the world when the 
Divinity of the Lord and of the Word is being 


156 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


doubted and disputed by a great many intelligent 
minds, and thousands are looking elsewhere for 
spiritual light and knowledge, the Lord is merci- 
fully revealing to us, according to prophecy, the 
spiritual sense of the Word, and, therewith, the 
true laws of visions and of genuine spiritual inter- 
course between this world and the other. Now 
the truth of the Word is the light of heaven; 
and unless the understanding of a man or spirit 
is adapted to that light, he cannot see in heaven. 
Heaven bas no need of the sun, neither of the 
moon, to shine in it. The Lord, by His Divine 
Truth, is its everlasting Light. And he who does 
not love the truth of the Word and let it shine, 
could not enjoy the light of heaven. For his 
mind would then be in falsity, which is truth per- 
verted, and is what 1s called “outer darkness. ” 
This doctrine may be seen by any one who under- 
stands that the spiritual world is a mental world, 
or world of mind. Because truth must be the 
only real light of the mind; the only light which 
enables us to see spiritual things so as to understand 
them as they are in their real qualities. The 
reason why spiritual or mental things can be ration- 
ally seen and understood only in the truth or 
light of the Word, is because mental things are 


- either good and true, or evil and false ; and from | 
the Word of God only comes the light by which — 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 157 pos 


We can distinguish between what is good and what 
is evil in our own minds, | 

Now a vision into the spiritual or mental world 
must be either in the light of truth or in false 
light, according to the state of the seer. But if 
false, it would seem to him as true, because he 
reasons from a perverted state, and accepts falsity 
as truth. We live in an age when visions are not 
being directly given by the Word of the Lord to 
prophets in order to teach men heavenly things. 
Nor need we look for any more visions from Him 
as His Word to man. For the Book of Revela- 
tion closes the canon of Scripture, and shows ‘the 
final bringing of all things into order. The holy 
Word is full and complete, and the opening of it 
to the spiritual Sense, with the illustrations and 
explanations given, affords all the opportunity for 
knowledge of the spiritual world and of our , 
spiritual being that we need, in order to give us 
_Yeasonable views of spiritual things, and of the 
necessary preparation to enter and enjoy the 
heavenly society. And I am not aware that any 
of the efforts of the age, under the head of 
“Modern Spiritualism,” are made to the Lord at 
all for instruction, or that He is said to commu- 
nicate. So far as I have heard, they are made to 
_ other sources, 
Now it should not be overlooked that it is God 
‘Himself that has given us ‘the Revelations which 


158 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


teach us His Divine qualities, and the nature of 
man, and the origin of evil, redemption, regener- 
ation, the judgment, and the laws of the spiritual 
world; that it is God Himself from whom all this 
spiritual knowledge has come ; and that the indi- 
viduals who originally received these Divine teach- 
ings, believed devoutly in the Lord, and were 
looking humbly to Him for them; and solemnly 
acknowledged Him to be their Author, and gave 
Him the most profound reverence. ‘We should 
also understand that a true knowledge of the 
spiritual world is, first, a knowledge of God, and 
second, a knowledge of man; and that this 
knowledge came originally from God as recorded 
in His Word; and that, to truly obtain it, we 
must drink into our souls the “ spirit and life ” of 
that Word in humble obedience to its truths. 
Now, as truth is the light of the holy Word, 
“and the only proper light of the spiritual world, 
therefore we can have reliable information con- 
cerning that world, only from minds. who see 
spiritual things in the light of the Divine Word. 
Therefore there can be no reliable teachers of 
spiritual things, either in this world or the other, 
who do not receive the truths of the holy Word, 
and make them the basis of their instructions. 
Spirits who do not love the Lord and His Word, 
do not see things in the spiritual world as they 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 159 


really are. For, to properly see the states and. — 


conditions of men, and understand the nature of 
the scenery there, spirits must know and love the 
truth that shines there; otherwise they pervert 
the truth, and see things ina false light; calling 
evil good, and good evil. The prophets and seers 
of the holy Word had their thoughts and feelings 
earnestly directed to God as the great Teacher 
and Word-giver. They were dependent upon 
Him for all new revelations concerning their duty. 
And when given to them they declared them to the 
people as the Word of the Lord. Their reveren- 
tial and confiding state of mind prepared them for 
the reception of the Word of the Lord, and some- 
times to the opening of the spiritual sight. 

We see nothing like this in the world now, 
Indeed, how many have ceased to go to that Word 
for spiritual light and knowledge! And yet there 
is a great effort being made for a knowledge of 
the spiritual world. People love their departed 
friends, and desire to hear from them, and to learn 
something about their condition, and to get some 
definite ideas about the world to which we are all 
going. And this state of things is what might be 
expected during the intermediate or transition 
state of the world, from one religious dispensation 
to another, while many are rejecting the false doc- 
trines which have been taught, and do rot yet see 
and receive the doctrines revealed by the spiritnal 


160 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


sense. And these efforts for spiritual intelligence 
are, no doubt, permitted by the Lord, for the pur- 
pose of turning the minds of men upward toward 
a life above matter, where men exist in spiritual 
substances and forms. But when these efforts fail 
to satisfy men, they may go to the spiritual light 
of the Word, which reveals the true nature and 
laws of spiritual existences, and brings men fully 
into the cordial embrace of the holy Word and 
its Heavenly Doctrines. For as the Lord more 
fully makes His second coming as the spiritual 
light and true doctrines of the Word, into the minds 
of men, restoring to their hearts as well as their 
heads the plain laws of heavenly life and spiritual 
existences, men will go to the one true fountain of 
heavenly light, there to seek the sure knowledge 
of the spiritual world and of the states of men 
there, from the spiritual sense, the spiritual teach- 
ings, and many visions of that Word. Because, 
therein, spiritual visions can be clearly interpreted 
and rationally understood; for we there have the 
science of correspondence, the sure key to the 
spiritual light which reflects the things seen, and 
_ tells what they really are, and what they mean. 
But, without that key and light, no one can 
clearly understand a single vision recorded in the 
holy Word. For the literal description alone 
gives only a natural scene to the natural mind, 
which reaches not the spiritual quality and sub- 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 161 


stance, and therefore it leaves the spiritual things 


in the dark. We can truly know nothing of the 
spiritual things of the other world, but by the 
quality of their substance, which is manifested in 
their forms, and understood by analogy. 

Now as the spiritual things seen in the visions 
of the holy Word cannot be understood without 
explanations in spiritual light by correspondence, 
so neither can things heard by speech from the 
other world, giving a description of things there, 
in our language, be truly understood without spir- 
itual light. For whether a thing be seen in the 
spiritual world by spiritual eyes, or be described 
in human language to the ears, itis equally obscure 
to the natural mind in this world, and cannot be 
understood as it really is in itself, without expla- 
nation in spiritual light: and that light is the 
Divine Truth of the Word—the light of heaven. 
John, in the Apocalypse, describes a scene in 
heaven —“ A woman clothed with the sun, with a 
crown of stars upon her head, and the moon under 
her feet.” But it teaches us nothing without 
explanation in spiritual light. So, should a de- 
parted friend accurately describe, through an 
angel, his house and the scenery around him in the 
spiritual world, and it should come to us in our 
language, we could not know, by the natural lan- 
guage alone, what it meant ; for it would be simply 
an account of the state of the feelings and thoughts 

II ‘ 


162 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


of our friend exhibited in the light of Divine Truth, 
and must be reached by correspondences. There- 
fore, whatever comes from the other world to men 
in this, must, in order to be understood as it is in 
that world, first have the light of the Word thrown 
upon it in explanation. For we can see things as 


they are in the other world, only by the Dieis ; 


Truth, which is the true light of that world. 

We do not mean to be understood as saying that 
no good and true open intercourse can be had. The 
spiritual senses of persons here, in certain states, 
inay be opened by the Lord, so as to hear music, 
and even to see persons in the other world, and 
hear them speak, whenever the Lord sees a use in 
it. But such manifestations would come unsought, 
and to persons humble and confiding in the iehyale 
and they would not come down to the gross senses 
of the natural body of the natural man, as do the 
things produced through the speaking, writing, and 
rapping mediums of the day; and they would 
come in the light of the Word. For in any other 
light, or by any other influence than the Lord, they 
would not be understood. 

Evil persons in the other world pervert the 
goods and truths given them, and are in evils and 
_ falsities. Therefore they see things in a false light, 
and they cannot describe Rape as it is in itself, 
but only as it appears to them in the false light in 
which they view it. When men really see these 


Bia i A SO i a ag 


il 
o 

=) 
_ 


Se. = 
>> 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 163 


Divine laws, they will abandon all hope of reliable .— 


intelligence from the spiritual world, except 
through the teachings of the Divine Truth of the 
Word—the real light of the spiritual world, 
which explains the true laws of intercourse between 
the two worlds. 

Now, when men understand that the spiritual 
world is the world of mind, and that the spiritual 
truth of the Word is the light of that world, and 
is given to us in order that we may understand 
that world and the appearances there, which are 
expressions of the states and qualities, the thoughts 
and feelings of human beings, so that men on 
earth may understand the laws of the spiritual 
world, and of their own spiritual nature, and know 
how to put away their evils and become filled with 
the spirit and life of heaven; I say, when 
men understand this, they will then see the nature 
and use of the visions and prophetic teachings 
recorded in the Holy Word; and they may then 
study them with deep interest, understanding 
what they study. Thus men may learn the true 
laws of visions, and thereby gain a knowledge of 
their own spiritual being, and of the spiritual 
world, and of the true laws of intercourse between 
the two worlds. 

We are now living in a transition state of the 
race. ‘here has been no age of the world’s his- 
tory like the present. In no other period of the 


164 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


same short time, was there ever such a revolution 
of sentiment among the masses of men, upon any 
religious subject, as has taken place within the 
last thirty years, upon the nature of the existence 
and condition of the people in the spiritual world. 
The old formless and blank ideas of departed souls 
have been rapidly passing away. Our friends in 
the other world are now generally being regarded 
as something more than unorganized phantoms or 
vapors. Nor is ita matter of wonder that, at a 
time when, in the preceding century, the plain 
literal doctrines of the Word and the way of sal- 
vation had been lost sight of, and mystery had be- 
clouded the destiny of man, and when new light 
from the spiritual sense of the Word had been 
revealed, giving substantial and reasonable views 
of the spiritual world and the way of life; and 
when this light had been so far dispensed as to 
reach some minds of all denominations; and is 
thus agitating the entire mental world on earth, 
exciting new action and interest in spiritual things 
and human destiny, some going to the holy Word 
for light, and some seeking it somewhere else; I 
say, under such new, and before unheard-of cir- 
cumstances, it isno wonder that many minds should 
have been startled at the new ideas being expressed 
of the existence of their friends in the spiritual 
world as substantial human beings in full form and 
life ; and particularly when they are told by spirit- 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 165 


ualists that, at their circles, they can talk with 
their friends if they please. For these ideas, 
when circles were first formed, were startling 
things to suddenly strike upon the minds Ae 
natural men ; and who can wonder that feelings of 
sympathy and curiosity should be aroused, and 
much marvel and wonder be excited? For every 
one has an interest in the spiritual world which he 
believes is to be his final abode. 

But a mind stored in this way with hearsay 
things from the spiritual world, without the truth 
of the Word to explain them, knows not what he 
has got nor where it came from. For with him 
who docs not seek spiritual light from the Lord 
and the Word, the natural mind only is fed, and 
that blindly, and with doubtful food. And yet 
this is all that the merely natural selfish mind, who 
lays aside the Holy Word in unbelief and goes to 
spirits for wisdom, could possibly obtain from the 
spiritual world, give him all the open intercourse 
with spirits which he might ask; for he would 
there only meet his like. 

Thus we believe the Holy Word is the true 
teacher concerning the spiritual world and its qual- 
ities and laws. It is abundantly stored with 
visions into that world. And by an under standing 
of those visions, by the science of edrrespondence:s 
we gain a true knowledge of the spiritual world 
and of our own cee being and wants. 


166 THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 


Now those men or those spirits are reliable 
teachers of the states and qualities of men and 
things in the spiritual world who have been regen- 
erated through a knowledge and love of the truths 
of the Word, and teach from those truths. For 
they only understand spiritual things as they are ; 
because they are in the light of the spiritual world, 
and regeneration is the only true spiritual educa- 
tion. For “the natural man beholdeth not the 
things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness 
to him; neither can he know them, for they are 
spiritually discerned.” He must first give himself 
up to God, and come to the Holy ‘Word for light, 
and keep the commandments for regeneration, 
before he can truly understand spiritual things. 
To assure us of this truth, a vision is recorded 
in Daniel, which he saw while others present did 
not see it. It reads thus:—“I Daniel alone saw 
the vision, for the men that were with me saw not 
the vision.” Daniel was spiritually minded, look- 
ing to the Lord, and he could see spiritual things. 
But the men that were with him were natural men, 
and could not see spiritual things. Here they 
were together; Daniel’s mind was open to the 
vision, but their minds were not open. Daniel 
was a follower of the Lord. He believed in Him, 
and in His Holy Word. But Daniel was indebted 
to the Sacred Scriptures for his spiritual education 
and knowledge of the Lord. 3 


THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 167 


With all these Gospel truths before us, how 
emphatically do we see the importance of seeking 
salvation and true heavenly knowledge, through 
repentance of our sins, faith in the Lord and His 
Holy Word, shunning all evils as sins against God, 
and living a life according to the commandments ! 
Indeed how can we have true spiritual knowledge 
in any other way? How can a spirit tell us any- 
thing about heaven, that we can fully understand 
and appreciate, any further than he and we have 
received the qualities of heaven into us by regen- 
eration? We must, like Daniel, alone see the 
vision. How can departed spirits see it for us? 
How can they even see it for themselves, without 
that regeneration which gives them the true light 
of heaven? 

Let us, then, humbly take for our guide the 
teachings of Him who created us, and who has 
mercifully provided heaven for us, and has plainly 
opened the way to it; and who now says to us, 
both by precept and example, “This is the way, 
walk ye init.” “Follow me in the regeneration.” 


DISCOURSE XAT, 


THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


*“* Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood. be 
shed.”— Gen. Ix. 6. 


Tis text has often been used by men to justify 
a spirit of retaliation ; as though an eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth were to be regarded as the 
law of the merciful God. 

And how much has that spirit been manifested 
in the world! Who can look at the history of our 
race, without a feeling of humiliation and shame 
for the conduct of man? War, persecution, 
misery and death, are among the leading features 
of human history. The whole map of humanity 
is terribly marked with streams of blood. Mil- 
lions upon millions of our race have been butchered 
as though they were dumb beasts. More than 
three millions are said to have fallen in one war 
—the noted French Revolution. But the death 
of three millions is but a single item in the distress 
and suffering of that campaign. Surviving hearts 
were convulsed with fear and anguish indescribable. 
No pencil of art, or tongue of eloquence, can 


(168) 


THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 169 _ 


sketch the faintest shade of the reality; for words — 


cannot describe, nor colors depict, the emotions of 
the soul. | 

But why such wars? There is never anything 
to palliate or justify such enormous violations of 
the Divine command, “Thou shalt not kill.” The 
wild and selfish ambition of depraved souls, inflated 
with the love of dominion and the pride of their 
own imaginary importance above their fellow men, 
always lies at the bottom of all such stormy trag- 
edies. Wars are things of the soul. The action 
_ and destruction of human bodies by the sword, 
are only external evidences of evils in the will. 
They assure us that vile spirits are at work, and 
that the fires of hell are somewhere burning in 
human hearts. And true peace depends upon 
man’s understanding what these fires are, whence 
they are kindled, and how quenched; and then to 
see to it, that they are not allowed to burn in his 
own bosom. They exist more or less in all fam- 
ilies and communities of the present age, and are 
bursting out here and there every day, in actual 
ill-will towards fellow men. Could we raise the 
curtain and look into the domain of mind in this 
city, we should see scenes of hostility as bitter 
and as revengeful as any upon the open field of 
battle. And they often show themselves, through 
the veil, in the flash of the eye and the curl of the 
lip. The vile slander, the poisoned insult, the 


170 THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


contemptuous look, are all declarations of war. 
And the return of an insult with a sarcastic sneer 
and a revengeful eye, is the acceptance of the 
challenge. And though it come not to physical 
blows, yet the fight may go on until the parties 
are both spiritually dead in hatred and malice. 
True, it would be self-murder on both sides. But 
how would it differ from a duel? Had they taken 
revolvers and shot each other’s bodies, the lead 
would not have killed their souls. Man’s real 
death is a matter of the soul, not of the material 
body, for this is not the man. And nothing can 
kill the man but himself. And then he is still 
alive unto evil, though dead unto good. 

But the question is asked, Whether God, in His 
Word, has not commanded men to fight? And 
why He is mentioned in the Word as a God of 
War, if He does not want men to fight? Man isa 
creature of God, with life and power given him to 
act, and rules of life telling him how to act, and 
freedom to conform to those rules or not, as he 
pleases. Under these circumstances a man has an 
individuality which can progress and become an 
angel; but under any other he would bea machine, 
and incapable of free progress or heavenly enjoy- 
ment. 

Now the physical wars which God seems literally 
to have commanded and encouraged, all grew out 
of vile and perverted states of things. The people, 


THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 171 


by the abuse of their freedom, had, on one side at 
least, become wicked, and disposed to fight. And 
though the command of God was, “Thou shult 
not kill,” yet, because they could not be induced 
to obey it in their freedom, God permitted them 
to break it. And then He seemed to take sides 
against the most wicked party, for the sake of 
spiritual instruction and the general good. 

From this state of things the question arises, 
Is not God a God of physical wars? We answer, 
He is not. In the true spirit of His Word, He 
has no such character. God is love. War is 
hatred. Can love produce hatred? God is light. 
War is darkness. Can light emit darkness ? 
God is mercy. War is revenge. Is mercy the 
parent of revenge? God is life. War is death. 
Is life the author of death? — God is virtue. War 
is vice. Can virtue bring forth vice? God is 
happiness. Waris misery. Can happiness pro- 
duce misery? God is heaven. War is hell. 
Does heaven produce hell? True, a man ora na- 
tion may be in a condition where a viler party may 
unjustly rise against him threatening destruction ; 
and when, in self-defence, it might be his duty to 
fight. But evil or self-love would be at the bot. 
tom of the commotion; for without it, all would © 
be peace. We know that the letter of the Word 
seems, in some places, to have commanded men to 
fight, while, in others, it commands us to love our 


172 THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


enemies. But these apparent contradictions are 
all readily reconciled by the spiritual sense. 

For all the wars of the Word have a spiritual 
signification, in which we are taught the evils of 
our own hearts, and how to fight and conquer them. 
Now the idea that God is a God of war, wrath, 
vengeance, fury and anger, as these terms are lit- 
erally understood, is revolting to the finer feelings 
of every true lover of virtue and goodness, to 
every bosom which glows with true heavenly peace 
and love. Nor can a heart exercised with such 
passions be a good heart. It would be anything 
else than God-like, heavenly, or divine. 

What a blessed and peaceful consolation it brings 
to the humble seeker after the Lord to be able to 
find Him in the glorious light of His own Divine 
Word, to be a God of pure, infinite, unchangeable 
love, whose mercy endureth forever. And to find, 
also, that, throughout the whole of His holy 
Word, when rightly understood, He every where 
bears this blessed character, without the least 
shadow of a suggestion to the contrary. Such an 
object is infinitely worthy the highest adoration 
and worship of all created intelligences. And 
what a wholesome exercise of the affections it 
must be to truly love such a Being! This is the 
blessed exercise which brings back to man the lost 
likeness of his heavenly Father. But if man 
exercises love towards a being whom he believes 


THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 173 


is wrathful and angry towards his enemies, that 


exercise cannot bring into his soul the likeness of 
the true God. For the true God commands us to 
love our enemies. This He could not do if He is 
wrathful toward His enemies. For we can truly 
obey His commands only in the exercise of His 
spirit. 

Wars, therefore, are recorded in the Word to 
teach us spiritual lessons. They denote some 
thoughts and feelings warring against some other 
thoughts and feelings of an opposite character. 
If they are wars which God commands and ap- 
proves, they represent good and true principles 
warring against evil and false ones. It is because 
of the combative operations between things good 
and evil in men’s minds, that there is much said of 
wars in the holy Word. For everything com- 
manded or forbidden in the holy Word is in- 
tended to operate upon the thoughts and feclings ; 
and cannot possibly be obeyed by man, in his 
present state and condition, except by a warfare 
against his evils. In God’s battles, or the battles 
he requires, there are to be exercised no feelings of 
anger or revenge. The love of goodness, the love 
of right, must stimulate to action. listead of 
anger and hatred there are felt sorrow and repent- 
ance; but they bring along with them a spirit of © 
resignation to the Divine will, and a determination 
to conquer every internal foe. . 


174 THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


That the Word has this internal sense when 
treating of wars, we might believe from the 
weapons of war with which the soldier of Christ 
is to fight: The breast-plate of righteousness ; 
the helmet of salvation; the shield of faith; the 
sword of the spirit; the whole armor of God. 
The sword of the spirit is the sharp two-edged 
sword which is said to go out of the mouth of the 
Lord. It is the truth which He speaks. The 
truth of the Word is the sword of the spirit. 
With this sword we are to destroy our enemies, 
which are our evils. The helmet of salvation is 
the truth in the head, understood, and used against 
falsities. By this helmet the work of regeneration 


is protected. The shield of faith denotes a reli- 


ance upon the truth as a defence against errors. 
The buckler, because it guards the breast, signi- 
fies the power of the truth to protect the charity 
and good-will of the heart. Thus we shall find 
that the whole armor of God, by which we are 
equipped for the Christian warfare, is that Divine 
power of the spirit of truth and love, in general 
and in particular, without which we can do noth- 
ing, and with which we can do all things necessary ~ 
for heaven. 

For illustration: - We find in Deut. xx. that 
the Lord is represented as going out to battle 
with the people, to fight against thdir enemies. 
And He excludes from going to war the man who 


-—s, 


> 


THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 175 


had built a house and had not dedicated it, also him 
who had planted a vineyard and had not eaten of 
it, and also him who had betrothed a wife and had 
not taken her. Now who can assign any plausible 
reason why these men should have been excluded, 
any sooner than any other persons? The reason 
assigned in the Word is, Lest they die in battle, 
and other men take the house, the Vineyard and 
the wife. But this reason does not satisfy the 
rational mind. To know why they were ex- 
cluded, we must understand the spiritual sense. 
We must know what is signified by building a 
house, planting a vineyard, taking a wife, and 
dying in battle. Now the spiritual sense of the 
Word always treats of what takes place in the 
human mind—the mental world. So, it is in the 
human mind that the house mentioned is built. 


_ It is a new mind with new thoughts and affections 


in the internal man, where the Lord can dwell 
with us, and we with Him. A human mind in 
order is called the Lord’s house, the temple of the 
Lord. This house is built by regeneration. By 
planting a vineyard is meant the reception of the 
truths of the Word into the good ground of the 
heart by repentance and obedience. By marrying 
a betrothed is meant to unite the truth in the 
understanding with good in the will. The Lord’s 


_ War is an open and faithful contest against the 


176 THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


evils and falsities of our fallen nature. To die 
in this battle is to be conquered by our evils. 
Now the reason why the man was excluded from 
going to war, who had not lived in his house, or 
eaten of his vineyard, or married his betrothed, 1s 


because, until the things spiritually signified by 


these acts begin to take place in man, he is not 
spiritually strong, and cannot prevail over his 
evils; he cannot conquer his internal foes. We 
must fight our evils with Truth grounded in Good. 
We cannot be successful by truth alone. Our 
mental house will not protect our lives against 
evils, unless we dedicate it to. God and live in’ it. 
The beautiful new truths which we are now re- 
ceiving from the spiritual light of the holy Word, 
may exhibit, in our imagination, a lovely mental 
character, a splendid house. And we may think 
we can fight and defend it without dedicating it to 
God and living in it; that we can overcome its 
enemies without looking to the Lord and keeping 
the commandments. But that is impossible. We 
must live in that lovely character, in that beau- 
tiful house, giving God the glory, or we shall 
surely fall in the battle, and some one else will 
take the house or the heavenly principles which 
we sec, but fail to keep, because we trust to self 
from the love of self. | 

And so, in our imagination, we may plant a @ 
lovely vineyard ; we may behold the beautiful doc- — 4 


THE WARS OF THE SORIPTURES. 174 


trines of the Word as a fresh vineyard in the hu- 
man mind, laden with rich clusters. We may 
think it is ours, and that we can defend it against 
all falses and evils, while we neglect to eat of its 
grapes, while we neglect to acknowledge that the 
Lord is the vine, and go to Him for power to de- 
fend it. But that cannot be done. We must eat 
of its fruits from the hands of the Lord. We 
must appropriate them to our affections. We 
must love the truths and do them. 

And so as to the betrothed: we may see that 
good and truth must be united in us; we may be- 
come sensible that, without their union, we cannot 
enter heaven. And we may resolve that they 
shall be united in us; we may make the solemn 
vow or betrothal; but we can never be successful 
in battles against our evils until that union begins 
to take place. Through the whole process of re- 
generation, from beginning to end, we must unite 
the truths we have with good affections ; we must 
bring the fruit of the vineyard into the house and 
live upon it daily, or we cannot drive the Canaan- 
ites, the evils of the soul, out of the land; but we 
shall surely be conquered by them. And some 
other persons more faithful and just, will get all 
the goods and truths now offered to us ; and which, 
in theory, appear so lovely. He who has not ded=. 
icated and lived in his house has not brought the 


goods of the Word into his will. He who has 
12 


178 THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


not eaten of his vineyard, has not appropriated 
the truth to his soul. He who has not married 
his betrothed, has not become united to the Lord 
as the Word —the husband of the Church; he 
does not supremely love the truth. Such persons 
are declared to be excluded from going to war 
when the Lord goes into battle, not really because 
the Lord excludes them, but because they exclude 
themselves, because there is no such thing as en- 
gaging successfully in this warfare unless the 
heart and the head are united in the work, and 
the arm of the Lord is relied upon. 

The Bible, in its spiritual sense, like its Divine 
Author, is opposed to all physical wars between 
either individuals or nations, because it is opposed 
to all the evil and selfish principles which cause 
such wars. But where those evils have existed 
and men were disposed to fight, the Lord has 
sometimes permitted it, in order to prevent greater 
evils, and teach useful lessons. But the wars 
would never have occurred if the people had 
yielded to the truth and spirit of the Lord, which 
they were free to do or not. And whoever will 
read the Word, in its spiritual sense, will find all 
the wars mentioned exceedingly instructive in the 
laws of true heavenly life; as is the one we have 
partially explained in this discourse. 

But what, then, shall we make of the text, 
which says: “ Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by 


THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 179 


man shall his blood be shed”? Is notthisacom- — 


mand of the Lord that we must take the life of 
the murderer? We answer, No. Itisa simple 
declaration of what will occur to our souls, if we 
destroy spiritual life. The text is but part of a 
sentence which reads as follows: “ Whoso shed- 
deth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed ; 
for in the image of God made He man.” There- 
fore we are not directed in it to shed the blood of 
any man in any case. For man was made in the 
image of God. And God’s Spirit, when reviled, 
reviles not again. He is “kind unto the unthank- 
ful and the evil.” Our text is of the same char- 
acter as the following phrase, relative to the “fall” : 
“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
surely die.” This does not mean that anything 
would be done to them by the Lord to kill them. 
It simply means that they would become wicked — 
dead in sin. And so of the text. Blood denotes 
spiritual life. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood de- 
stroys his own spiritual life; that is, he who in- 
jures his neighbor’s soul corrupts his own spirit ; 
for in the image of God made He him; and hence 
he would lose that image. The text is a simple 
declaration of the great law that the measure we 
mete to others will be measured to us again; not 
physically, but spiritually. It is the spiritual law 
of consequences by which certain causes must pro- 
duce certain effects. Thus when a man eats the 


1SO THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


forbidden fruit, he sheds his own blood. And in 
doing this, he at the same time injures his neigh- 
bor; for that fruit is the breaking of the com- 
mandments. Thus there is nothing in the Word 
that spiritually contradicts the command: “Thou 
shalt not kill.” 

But, it is asked if the war under General Wash- 
ington was not justifiable on our part. The col- 
onies, no doubt were ill-treated; and the Lord 
permitted the war for some good end. But we, | 
as well as our enemies, were more or less a wicked 
people. If we had been a pure and holy people, 
too much filled with the spirit of the Lord to 
fight, the enemy would have retired from the field 
without shedding our blood. They would have 
been powerless before so heavenly a sphere, with 
the Lord and His angels in the midst.. The evil 
spirits, that excited them to action, would have 
retired before the angelic host, and our enemies 
would have left the field. This, however, was 
not the case. We, too, were depraved creatures ; 
but, under the circumstances, we felt justified in 
throwing off the oppression, and the Lord sus- 
tained us, and we did our duty. But evil and in- 
justice in our enemies were at the bottom, or we 
should not have been so unkindly treated as to 
render our independence necessary for the good 
of mankind. | 

But the question will be repeatedly asked, and 


THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 181 


must be as repeatedly answered, Whence is all 
this war, and sin, and evil, and crime, if not from 
God nor His law? Who is the author of all this 
misery? Sin and crime have an author; and he 
is a mighty chieftain. Every war, every murder, 
every lie, slander, theft; every vice of every 
hue, is done under the express command of this 
leader. Lut whence and who is he? His ofiicial 
name is General Self-love, the essence of which 
is love of evil. Self-love is the great criminal 
commander. He is now at the head of all the 
wars of the world. He stirs up all the angry 
strifes, and is engaged in every petty quarrel and 
dispute in the land. It is the “JZ, myself,” prin- 
ciple of the depraved heart that does all the mis- 
chief. Let us beware of him. For, once under 
his supreme control, we lose the precious gem 
of heavenly love. 

But whence is this mighty foe to all true peace 
and joy, if not from God? His parents were from 
God, but he was not. Who were his parents? 
Freedom and Curiosity. God endowed man with 
the powers of reasoning, and gave him freedom to 
do as he pleased, and a desire for knowledge, in 
order that he might be capable of progression, 
and become an angel. Through the abusive ex- 
ercise of his freedom and curiosity, which in them- 
selves were good and necessary endowments, man 
overreached the line of virtue, and, by habit, 


182 THE WARS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


gradually engendered in his bosom the love of 
self. Therefore, as man fell, self-love was begot- 
ten in him by the perversion of the life or love 
element given him from God. Thus man fell from 
love to God, to the love of self; or from love of 
good, to love of evil. 

And now, in order to conquer this self-love, 
we must choose another Ruler —the Lord Jesus 
Christ. And, having chosen Him, we must 
promptly obey His orders. Under His banner, 
in this way, we can master and subdue self-love, 
and in no other way. ‘This is the true warfare. 
These are God’s battles, and He fights with us. 
And if we are in earnest, and look to Him, and 
obey His commands, the victory is sure. “They 
that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, 
which cannot be moved, but abideth forever.” 


DIS COURS He XITT. 
PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 


_ WE speak to-day on Punishments and _ their 
Use. ‘The subject therefore brings before us, for 
consideration, the sufferings and troubles of hu- 
manity, and their causes and consequences. For 
all states of mind not heavenly and happy, and all 
states of body not healthy and buoyant, must be 
classed on the side of punishments. For no un- 
happiness could be produced without the violation 
of the laws of life somewhere. And mental evils 
of individuals are in the general sphere of human 
society on earth, and more or less affect it. When, 
therefore, we glance at the dark page of the 
world’s history, and notice the appalling evils 
which the vile passions of the human heart have 
brought upon mankind; when we review the 
sweeping calamities of wars, the starving multi- 
tudes, the barbarous cruelties, sometimes to the 
entire destruction of nations; when we reflect 
upon. what our own beloved country, under the 
mildest and best government of the world, has re-. 
cently passed through, we see enough, without 
looking further, to call our attention most emphat- 


(183): 


184 PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 


ically to the consideration of these words of God: 
“I will punish the world for their evil, and the 
wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the 
arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low 
the haughtiness of the terrible.” — Isa. xiii. 11. 
These are sure declarations of Almighty God. . 
They are solemn and definite truths, suited to all 
times, and extend to all peoples. And they will 
be surely carried out, without variableness or 
shadow of turning. The world must be punished 
for their evils. The wicked must suffer for their 
iniquity. The arrogancy of the proud must cease. 
And the haughtiness of the terrible must be laid 
low; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. 
Thus the retribution is sure tocome. And the 
deeper the evils, the greater the suffering; the 
higher the pride, the further the fall; the more 
pompous the arrogance, the more vexatious the. 
ignominy. The Lord says He will punish the 
world for their evils. | 
Now we all know that the whole community has 
to suffer for the evils that are in it; the good, as 
well as the bad. For, though the evils which in- 
fest the general body, and which are constantly 
breaking out and disturbing the peace, are in the 
transgressors, yet, in the disturbances, the orderly 
are annoyed as well as the others. It is therefore 
for the outward peace and comfort of the good, as 
well as for their spiritual growth and prosperity, 


PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. . 185 


that they should labor for the salvation of the "a 


whole people; and thus for the maintenance of 
quietude and order throughout the community. 
It is through the law-abiding citizens that these 
things are to be acomplished. 

God has endowed men with the proper ability, 
and given them the truths of His Word, and the 
power of His Spirit; and if they neglect their 
duty, they must suffer the consequences. If wars 
break out, and evils burst forth and threaten des- 
truction, the peaceful citizens are obliged to use 
their money, and substance, and strength, and even 
their blood, if necessary, for the restoration of order. 
Thus the world must be punished for their sins. 

These sins are of innumerable varieties, and are 
scattered throughout the entire people or body 
politic. And all leading minds are more or less 
_to blame; some for what they have done, and 
others for what they have left undone. And 
while the Lord declares that He will punish the 
world for their evil, in which the general body 
suffers, He further says He will punish the wicked 
for their iniquity. The transgressors, therefore, 
besides the punishment they receive with the 
general body, must have their own individual 
punishment. 

This punishment is spiritual as well as physical. 
It flows from the disease of the soul, and must be 
borne until removed by regeneration. This spirit- 


186 PUNISHMENTS AND .THEIR USE. 


_ual disease is the root of all sufferings, and before 

true order and peace can be restored to the world, 
this root must be removed. We may quell out- 
ward disturbances by external force, and thus 
hold the wicked of a community in outward order 
by the civil law and its penalties. Indeed this is 
the only way bad men can be controlled, either in 
this world or the other. It would be useless to 
talk to evil spirits about love to God and the 
neighbor, and moral obligations. They have no 
conscience. ‘They are in the love of evil, and are 
tempting men in the flesh into sins. And if we 
yield to their influence, heeding not the laws of 
God and man, the best thing for our spiritual good 
is a forced submission to wholesome laws, through 
such punishments as will insure obedience. ‘This 
is the only way to preserve public peace, and ren- 
der the existence of transgressors tolerable, and 
their regeneration probable. Therefore the Lord, 
in His providence, permits it among all nations, 
and thus He governs the wicked. 

Now, from the letter of the text, it would seem 
that the Lord inflicts the punishment. But this 
is only apparent. Evil always brings its own 
punishment. ‘Thus it is written, “Evil shall slay 
the wicked, and they that hate righteousness shall 
be desolate.” ‘This desolation is the absénce of 
all good principles. ‘This absence renders the 
mind and soul miserable. We are therefore com- 


PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 184 


manded in the Word to “depart from evil, and do 
good and dwell forevermore.” This brings back _ 
into the soul the kingdom of heaven, and eternal 
dwelling in the presence of the Lord in true peace. 

And this view of the matter introduces us to the 
spiritual contemplation of our subject, and leads 
us to the consideration of the causes of all calam- 
ities, and the true way of their removal. For in 
the civil government, by restraining outward evil 
acts by outward force, we are simply using effects 
against effects, in the exercise of the natural mind 
and body. But, in the spiritual course, we are 
operating in the world of causes, by bringing princi- 
ples to bear against principles, and then virtue pre- 
dominates over vice, and the result is regeneration. 

Let us now look at the nature and origin of 
the principles which are brought to bear against 
each other in the spiritual or mental contest; for 
this is what most deeply concerns us all. It is 
indeed the great contest for life, and should be 
distinctly understood and appreciated. Let US, 
then, first inquire what the evil is, which the Bible 
says shall slay the wicked. For if men would 
understand and take care of that, all would be 
well. We are commanded to depart from evil 
and do good; and the apostle says, “Be not over- 
come of evil, but overcome evil with good.” 
From this we see that this evil and this good are 
powerful things; that either of them possesses 


188 PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 


power to overcome us if we yield to it. We see, 
also, by this Scripture, that man is free; free to 
be overcome of evil, and free to overcome evil 
with good. 

Now, in looking at the essence’ of the thing, 
what are we to understand by this good which is 
so powerful? This good is the substance of the 
Divine Love, freely accepted by man, and oper- 
ating in his soul by the power of the truth. In 
the fountain it is God Himself. In the stream, 
as received into the soul of man, it is the love of 
truth and righteousness. Then we see that we — 
are to overcome evil with God, or with good, or 
with the love of right. 

What, then, is this evil which is so powerful? 
It is the opposite of good. It is the Divine good 
perverted by the abuse of man’s freedom, and is 
thus operating in a wrong course. In man, evil 
is the love of wrong, moving us to sin. The love 
of evil is what we are always to understand by the 
term “the Devil.” Evil people are called devils, 
not on account of their persons, but of their love 
of evil. Evil love is the cause of all strife, malice, 
revenge, and crime of every shade and character. 
Its head is the love of self. 

Now, that the phrase, the Devil, means the love 
of evil and evil beings in the complex, we are 
clearly taught in the fifth chapter of Mark. There 
a man is described as possessed with «the devil.” 


PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 189 


And the Lord said unto this devil, “Come out of 
the man, thou evil spirit. And He inquired of 
this devil, saying, What is thy name? And he 
answered saying, My name is Legion; for we are 
many.” “And all the devils besought Him, say- 
ing, Send us into the swine.” ~ Here we see that 
the evil loves and influences that were in this man, 
are called in the:same chapter and connection an 
unclean spirit, and legion, and many, and devils, 
and unclean spirits, and the devil. This is proof 
conclusive, that the term, the devil, embraces them 
all; or all evils and evil spirits in the complex. 

All good is God. All evil is the devil, God 
is heaven. The devil is hell. And the love of 
evil is the very essence of hell. It is the devil. 
The Lord clearly teaches that bad men, even in 
this world, are devils ; for He called Peter Satan, 
and Judas a devil. And yet He did not mean to 
teach that Peter and J udas, as His apostles, were 
personally Satan and the Devil. But He meant, 
by satan and devil, the falsities and evils still 
remaining in them ; principles which they had not 
yet resisted and put away; and which, at the 
time, were in action. sia 

Now, if a bad man in the fiesh, in consequence 
of his evils, may be called a devil, soa good man, 
on account of his goodness, may be called an an-. 
gel. And so we find in the holy Word, that 
angels are sometimes called men, and sometimes 


190 PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 


angels. And why not call a fully regenerated 
person an angel, if we had such now on earth? 
The material body is not the man, but his clothing. 
And as he would be an angel without the taber- 
nacle of clay, so he must be with it.. The putting 
off of the body changes not the man. He is the 
same being in a new mode of existence. From 
this, then, we see that a good man, falling into 
sin, would become a fallen angel or a devil. The 
Bible speaks of no other fallen angels, as persons, 
than those in this world, who fall from the love 
of good to the love of evil. Their falling from 
heaven is falling from a heavenly state of mind. 
Yor there is no sinning nor falling in the heavenly 
society of the angels in the other world. For 
their faces are toward the Lord; they are filled 
with His spirit ; otherwise it would not be heaven. 

Now, we can account for the Lord’s calling Peter 
Satan, and Judas a devil, only on the ground of 
the doctrine of two minds, an internal and an ex- 
ternal, anda progressive regeneration. For Peter 
was one of the most prominent of the Lord’s apos- 
tiles, and had he been fully regenerated, he could 
not have been called Satan, nor could he have 
denied his Master. No doubt his internal man 
had, to a certain extent, the spirit of Christ; for 
he was called to be an apostle of the Lord by the 
power of the spirit of truth. But in his external 
man there were still false and evil principles un- | 


PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. IQI 


subdued. And _ these things would sometimes 
show themselves. These unsubdued principles of 
the natural man, when in action, rather than Peter 
himself, are what the Lord called satan. Thus 
Paul said of his own transgressions, “It is no 
more I, but sin that abideth in me.” Paul here 
means by “J,” the internal man. He seems to 
have had a distinct idea of the spiritual and nat- 
ural man. His devils or evils had not all been 
cast out of the external man. He had not yet. 
finished the good fight. He had not been fully 

delivered from the body of sin and death of 
which he complained. He still felt its weight, 
and sometimes feared that he should be a “ cast- 
away.” He said there was a law in his members 
warring against the law of his mind; that whereas 
he would do good he could not. He here means, 
by the law in his members, the love of evil in the 
external man; and by the law of his mind, the 
Divine Truth in his internal man. By the “I,” 
which he says would do good but cannot, he means 
the internal man. The internal mind cannot do 
good against the will of the external. The free- 
dom of the man is in the external mind. There- 
fore before the internal man can do good, the 
external must give up. And the reason why Paul 
could not do good when he would, was because in 
the external man he did not look to the Lord and 
try as he might. The fault was in Paul. No man 


192 PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 


can do good of himself alone. His external man 
must look to the Lord. Thus we see that the 
devil, evil, sin, and self-love, each and all mean 
the same thing. Evil or sin is the moving de- 
pravity of the soul. The devil is that depravity 
in wilful activity with evil influx. Hell is the 
unhappy consequence of these evil states and 
operations. 

In obeyivg the command, then, to depart from 
evil or resist the devil, we must individually look 
into our own hearts for the field of operation. 
And though the devil makes his bed in hell, and 
always dwells there, yet that bed is nowhere else 
to be found, but in the wills of mankind. And 
if we have no bed or resting-place for him there, — 
no depraved affection for him to operate in, —we 
have no devil to resist, and consequently the com- 
mand does not apply to our individual case. But 
let us not deceive ourselves, for if we have any 
selfish or unkind feelings toward individuals, 
rather than their evils, we have something of the 
devil there. And just to the extent that he is in 
our hearts, he has his lake of fire and brimstone 
there. And all anger, revenge, hatred, or ill-will 
which we may exercise towards any of God’s crea- 
tures, as persons, is from the burnings of this 
lake. The fires of this lake are our evil loves, and 
the brimstone is the morbid passions which excite 
these evil loves and gives fuel to their flame. 


PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 193 


There is no other lake of fire and brimstone in 
which men or souls are tormented, and no other 
hell than the human heart. This selfish lake is in- 
the will of the external man, and it aims its re- 
venge at persons. 

But if we are being regenerated, we have in the 
internal man a purer fire, a heavenly flame, a love 
of good. And we should be careful not to mis- 
take the character of these two fires of the soul. 
And if we possess some of each of them, as all 
partially regenerated persons do, we should be 
very careful how we exercise them, and which 
takes the lead. We should remember that the evil 
flame is in the natural man, and is for self against 
persons and their rights; while the good fire is in 
the spiritual man, and is for the Lord and the 
neighbor, and against evils and falsities. The fire 
or life of the natural man should always yield to, 
and be tempered, directed, and controlled by, the 
life or fire of the spiritual man, that the Lord 
Himself may be in the work. Then the natural 
flame will be turned into its proper action and use. 
But the fire of the natural man, if left to burn in 
its own way, will burn up all that is good. For 
God dwells in the fire of heaven, while the devil 
dwells in the fires of hell. 

Now our subject applies to all kinds of diffi- 
culties and disorders of every shade and character. 
They burst out in individuals, in families, socie- 

17 


194 PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 


ties, towns, states and nations. And in order for 
true spiritual victory, each one must fight his own 
evils, the foes of his own household, as well as 
the general enemy. However great the evil may 
appear in others, we should not so fix our eyes 
upon their sins as to lose sight of our own. For 
we have nothing good from ourselves or from our 
merits; and it is only he that humbleth himself 
that is exalted. 

And our text declares that the Lord will cause 
the arrogancy of the proud to cease; and will lay 
low the haughtiness of the terrible. And we 
should remember, that the race is not always to 
the swift nor the battle to the strong. Man, ap- 
parently in his own pride and power, may some- 
times win a physical battle or race, against virtue ; 
but the Lord looketh on the heart and regards 
the soul. All spiritual victories are in the Lord’s 
strength and man’s weakness. And should a 
bad man win a race against a good one in exter- 
nals, he would lose it in internals. And the spir- 
itual is the essential victory. And in all battles 
the Lord is on the side of virtue. He permits the 
war in order to prevent some greater evil. And 
the victory always results for the greatest spiritual 
good to mankind under the circumstances, let the 
external victory be for which side it may. 

For the Lord has eternal ends in view. Selfish 
man, in the exercise of his selfishness, little knows 


PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 195 


what is best for him. And we cannot tell what a. 


day may bring forth. The Lord leads us in a way 
we know not, and brings us in paths which we 
have not known. Who can look back through a 
long life, and recount the unlooked-for events 
through which he has passed, and not see how 
completely his path has been hidden from his 
view? 

And so with nations and the world. Crazy 
would that man have been considered who, twelve 
years ago, had announced what the United States 
have since passed through. Nor do any of us 
know what the next twelve years will accomplish 
for our country. Small circumstances sometimes 
change the course of great events. We are look- 
ing at present things, and for external changes. 
The Lord looks at eternal things and internal 
changes. He sees the condition of our country 
from the day of the “May Flower” on through 
millions of centuries; and in everything that He 
either directs or permits, His entire object is the 
greatest eternal good to the greatest number. 
Things might have gone much better for us if we 
had better obeyed the Law. And sadly have we 
been punished for our evils. And so with all na- 
tions. Much bloodshed and suffering might have 
been avoided all over the world. | 

We of the United States, as an educated and 


196 PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 


Christian people, have great scientific light, high 
inventive and mechanical talent, much pride of 
opinion, a strong love of the world, with boasted 
freedom of speech and independence of action. 
In these respects, collectively, the history of the 
world affords no parallel. Into this state of things 
there is now descending amongst us the Light of 
the New Jerusalem. And it is gradually chang- 
ing, modifying, and moulding anew the entire re- 
ligious and civil sentiments and emotions all over 
the world. And to those who clearly see it, it is 
a light sufficiently strong, as it enters the rational 
faculty, to show them, understandingly, how em- 
phatically the evils, the pride, the arrogance and 
iniquity of the people are punishing the world, 
the wicked, the proud and the arrogant; and how 
surely sin must bring upon man its own afilictions. 
And as the Light advances in strength, the human 
mind must yield to it in perfect freedom according 
to reason. 

Then let us, and all who have the Light, draw near 
to the Lord in affections and thoughts, in prayer 
and obedience. Let us try to extend this light 
into the mind of every one who desires to see 
more clearly the heavenly way before him. For 
in this way only can God’s kingdom surely come, 
and His will be done on earth as it is done in 
heaven. In this way only can the world be re- 


PUNISHMENTS AND THEIR USE. 197 


lieved from its punishments, and the wicked from 
their iniquity, and the proud and haughty become 
humble and heavenly, and the shout of the angels 
be fully verified which proclaimed, “Glory to God 
in the highest; on earth peace; good will toward 
men.” 


DISCOURSE XIV. 
PRAYER: ITS IMPORTANCE AND EFFECTS. 


‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find ; 
knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” — Luxe xz. 9. 


Gop commands us to pray. Prayer is a means 
of salvation. We cannot be saved without it. 

Moses and the prophets prayed. Daniel would 
not give up his prayers even at the hazard of his 
life. The apostles: prayed. The Lord Himself, 
in His assumed nature, set the example to the 
Christian Church, and taught His disciples how to 
pray. He prayed often. On one occasion He 
prayed all night, till His locks were wet with the 
_ dew. When He was baptized, while He was pray- 
ing, the heavens were opened unto Him, and the 
Spirit of God descended like a dove and lighted 
upon Him. And among the last acts of His life 
in the flesh was a prayer for His murderers. 

This prayer was not offered by the pure inter- 
nal Divinity of the Lord, unselfish and lovely as 
it seems. The Divine Being never prayed nor 
suffered. But the external mind, or Son of God, 
while in personal connection with any infirmity 


(198) 


PRAYER. 199 


from Mary, was not fully glorified and Divine, and 
thus one with the Father; hence He could say— 
“Father, forgive them.” This prayer was from 
the spirit of love from the Father within. And 
in true prayer men receive of the same spirit of 
love and good-will to all men. 

But important as the use of prayer is, we think 
there is no duty less understood, and more mis- 
used. To know the true use of prayer, we should 
know the character of God. For if we suppose 
that He can answer prayers or not as He pleases, 
that He is directing, moving, and controlling all 
things, even as to the thoughts, feelings, and ac- 
tions of men, and that it depends entirely upon 
His will whether men are saved or not, then we 
lose the. true idea of man’s responsibility and of 
the use of prayer. And if we further suppose 
that.it depends upon the character of the sinner 
_.and the prayer, whether God is willing to bless 
the petitioner or not, we are then resting upon’ 
the false idea that the answer to prayer depends 
upon the effect which the prayer has upon God’s 
feelings, and that He grants favors that He would 
not be willing to grant if the prayer had not ex- 
cited His compassion. Upon either of these hy- 
potheses we lose sight of the true nature of God 
and the true use of prayer. For God cannot save © 
any man contrary to the laws of salvation; whick 
are laws of love to God and the neighbor. 


200 PRAYER. 


These laws in the human heart, are the salva- 
tion of the soul. In order to have them there, 
man must pray for them or desire them. And he 
must freely resist the action of whatever he finds 
in his nature opposed to those laws, must yield 
to the power of the truth, and permit the Lord 
to establish His kingdom in the heart through the 
removal of evils by repentance, faith, charity and 
obedience. All this must be done before it is 
possible for God Himself to save us. And this 
work cannot be done without man’s freedom of 
action and his prayers. For man is nota machine, 
but a free and rational being, and, as such, has 
something essential to do in the work of his sal- 
vation. He is therefore commanded to pray, to 
pray always, to pray without ceasing, that the 
work may go on. Prayer without ceasing is a 
constant solicitous dependence upon the Lord to 
keep us in the way of life in obedience to His 
Word. | 

Now God being infinite and unchangeable Love 
and Wisdom, therefore prayer cannot affect Him 
in the least. But it can affect us. It prepares us 
to receive what He ever desires to give. But, to 
rightly receive the Divine influence, and be bene- 
fited by our prayers, we must understand what we 
should pray for. We should see what changes in 
our affections are necessary for our purification, and 
how they are to be made. And we should pray 


PRAYER. 201 


for those changes, and for a disposition to use the © 
means and powers which God gives us, by His 
Word and Spirit, to accomplish the work. 3 

Now, when we rationally see that all true happi- 
ness consists in being in harmony with the Divine 
laws, and that misery is the effect of being at vari- 
ance with those laws, we are prepared for the exer- 
cise of true prayer; and we then ask in the spirit 
of those laws, and we consequently receive. For 
the Lord says, “If ye ask anything in My name, 
I will do it.” And we ask in His name when we 
ask in accordance with His Word. Name denotes 
quality, and when we ask in the spirit of His 
truth, we ask in His name or quality. The Lord 
further says, “If ye abide in me, and my words 
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall 
be done unto you.” And this must be so. For, in 
such a state, we should ask nothing but what He 
desired to give, and the asking would open the 
way to receive. The beloved apostle says, * Ye 
ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” This 
is one reason why the world is filled with so much 
fruitless prayer. The apostle James says, “If 
we ask anything according to His will, He heareth 
us.” 

Now, if the Lord could do away with all sin 
and misery, and make all men truly happy at 
His will, He would do it at once. For He “ would 
have all men to be saved.” And He would have 


202 PRAYER. 


them saved now, saved always, saved everywhere. 
He is “not willing that any should perish, but 
_ that all should come to repentance.” He is ever 
giving to all men, spirits and angels, their life, 
and all the blessings they will receive. Their 
miseries they bring upon themselves. He is not 
the author of them. “I have no pleasure in the 
death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, there- 
fore turn yourselves and live ye.” 

From all this we may see that prayer does not, 
in any way whatever, affect God. True prayer is 
an elevation of the affections to God, and a desire 
that He will enable us to see our evils, overcome 
them, and put them away. And this the Lord is | 
always ready to do; but man must be willing. 
And we should never forget that our prayers must 
be according to His laws. Then, would we pray 
to be converted to God, we must pray for a change 
in our intentions and course of action; and for 
the influence of the Spirit to enable us to do the 
will of God in keeping the commandments, in 
order to effect this change. Do we want our sins 
pardoned, and would we pray for it, we should 
not be thinking of the penalty and asking for its 
remission; but our thoughts should be fixed upon 
our depraved and selfish affections, and we should 
ask that they may be removed, by the Spirit of 
God, through our repentance and obedience. 
Would we pray that we may avoid the miseries of 


PRAYER. 203 


hell, we must look dependently to the Lord for the 


disposition and the power to conquer hell in our- 
selves, and have it removed through repentance and 
obedience. Would we pray that we may go to 
heaven, let our prayer to God be that we may pur- 
sue the path of virtue which leads there, that we 
may find the kingdom in our own souls. 

Now there are two kinds of prayer which men 
use: one is founded on the love of self and the 
world, which is the more used; and the other on 
love to God and the neighbor. In the prayers, 
from love of self and the world, men are laboring 
to avoid a place of misery and obtain one of happi- 
ness. ‘They are afraid of the miseries of hell, and 
have high ideas of the joys of heaven. Such per- 
sons are often zealous, loud and pleading in their 
prayers; for the love of self is in the natural 
mind. It is nearer the surface than love to God, 
which is deep down in the heart, and is moved by 
the still small voice. The love of self in its move- 
ments is like the shoal waters of a river, running 
rapidly among the rocks on its noisy way. In 
prayers founded on love to God and the neighbor, 
men are laboring to remove a present state of 
wrong from the heart and from community; and 
to bring in, by the Spirit of the Lord, a state of 
right, a state of love, virtue and peace. They are 
striving to know their duty and to doit. Thus works 
love to God. It is like a deep stream, moving on 


204. PRAYER. 


quietly, firmly, and steadily to the ocean of eternity. 
The great question, with those who thus pray, is 
not, Where are we going when we die? But, 
What good can we do while we live? 

Now the text points out the true course of 
prayer; and he who examines it attentively will 
see the true object, order and use of prayer. 
* Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall 
find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” 
Thus we are taught that we must do three things 
in order to have the duor of heaven opened to us: 
that we must ask, and seek, and knock. ‘These 
three things have relation to the will, the under- 
standing, and the action. To ask is an effort of 
the will, a desire of the heart. To seek, implies 
an effort of the understanding in union with the 
will, for obtaining the truths we need to guide us. 
To knock, is an outward act. It denotes works or 
obedience to the truth. Here then are brought 
together the combined efforts of the three great | 
elements of life from God: love, wisdom, and 
power; moving the will, the understanding, and 
the energy of man, to ask, to seek, and to do the 
Lord’s will. Such states of mind and desires of 
the heart, acting im accordance with the Divine 
will, place us in the current of the Divine stream 
of love, wisdom and power, and we thus work 
out our own salvation, God working in us to will 
and to do. For, by thus asking, seeking, and 


PRAYER, 205 


knocking, there are brought into combined opera- 
tion, in our souls, the elements of Charity, Faith, 
and Works. And it is only by the united action 
of these three principles, through the spirit of 
Christ, that we can be moved heavenward. And 
all is done under the influence of prayer or desire 
of the heart that we may feel right, think right, 
and act right. Thus we must pray as we ask, 
pray as we seek, and pray as we knock. And we 
are told that such prayers will surely be answered ; 
for the Lord declares that every one that asketh 
receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him 
that knocketh it shall be opened. This is because 
the asking, which is the operation of the will as 
the spring of the movement, excites and operates 
‘in the seeking and knocking. The asking, the 
seeking and the knocking, are all filled with the 
desire of the heart that God’s kingdom may come, 
and His will be done in earth as it is done in 
heaven. | 

But, in this selfish age, few people, if any, are 
prepared to ask, to seek and to knock in the clear 
-and pure spirit of the Divine laws. Let us then 
look at our text in a lower shade of light, in which 
it is better adapted to our depraved wants. Now 
when the Lord says to us, “Ask and ye shall re- . 
ceive,” what are we most ready to ask for above 
the things of this world? It is for heaven or hap- 
piness. And in this desire for happiness, we may 


206 PRAYER. 


look for a shade of selfishness. But this selfish- 
ness may be softened by desiring that ail men may 
have this happiness as well as ourselves, and that 
there may be peace and good-will among men. 
And when this selfishness is so modified, the de- 
sire is an orderly prayer. But this prayer will 
amount to nothing unless we go further. The 
blessed boon will not fall into our lap simply by 
asking for it. What would we think of a man 
who should sit in his house and ask the Lord to 
give him a crop of corn without his planting. or 
tilling? Now, the cultivation of the soil and sub- 
duing of weeds and thistles, in order to get natural 
bread, perfectly correspond to the cultivation of 
the heart and subduing our vices, in order to re- 
ceive the bread of heaven. The blessings desired 
then must be asked for according to the Lord’s 
will. We cannot receive grapes of thorns nor 
figs of thistles, or truths of falsities nor goods 
from evils. Would we have the grape and fig, we 
must first subdue the thorn and thistle, prepare 
the ground, and plant and cultivate the grape and 
fig till they bear fruit. — 

But we said a sincere desire, asking the Lord 
for happiness for ourselves and for all men, was 
an orderly prayer; and the Lord says: “ Ask and 
ye shall receive.” And if this desire be truly and 
sincerely made, we certainly shall receive; for 
such a prayer places us under a new influence for 


PRAYER. . 2047 


mental action. We desire of the Lord happiness 

for the world of mankind. This desire involves 

the question of what true happiness consists, and 

how it can be obtained. When, therefore, we 

sincerely desire of the Lord this happiness, we 

receive an inclination to seek, in the Holy Word, 

a true knowledge of what that happiness will con-. 
sist, and how it is to be obtained. 

Thus we ask and receive a disposition to seek. 
This disposition we could not have without the 
asking; for we could not truly seek for what we 
did not desire. But having asked and received, 
we shall now certainly find a distinct idea of what 
true happiness consists, and how it is to be ob- 
tained, if we faithfully seek that knowledge. 
For, in the Holy Word, under the guidance of the 
Lord, these things are well defined. We ask, 
then, for happiness, and we receive a desire to 
seek a knowledge of what true happiness consists, 
and how to obtain it; and having carefully sought 
and found that this heavenly happiness is the re- 
sult of a clean heart and a right. spirit, flowing 
out in love to God and the neighbor; and that 
the way to obtain it is to break off from all sin by 
righteousness, in obedience to the commandments ; 
it now remains for us to knock, and the heavenly 
gate will be opened, and the rich blessing will be 
ours. : 

But it is in the knocking that the great work is 


208 PRAYER. 


accomplished. It is in the good, honest, humble, 
kind and virtuous life, in dependence upon the 
Lord, that the purification takes place and the 
happiness is given. Asking for heaven, however 
sincerely and ardently, does not give it to us; 
but it does increase our desire for it, and incline 
us to inquire into its qualities and laws, and the 
way that leads to it. Seeking a knowledge of it 
does not give it to us. But it still increases our 
desire for it, shows us something of its beauty, 
and inclines us to approach it. Finding it, intel- 
lectually, does not give it to us. But it brings us 
to the door, increases further our prayer for it, 
and disposes us to knock. And this knocking is 
the work of our lives in opposing our evils and 
doing good. 

Every evil we get rid of opens the door a 
little wider, and gives us a little more light from 
the Holy City, and prepares us to see and oppose 
another evil of the heart. And thus the work 
will go on, the asking, the seeking and the knock- 
ing operating together, like the will, the under- 
Pendine and the actions, or the charity, the faith 
and the works. For there will always be some- 
thing new to ask for, to seek after, and to live and 
labor for. For the happiness of heaven is not 
limited to a certain measure with an individual, 
nor are his capacities for happiness thus limited. 
Both the capacities and the amount will increase 


PRAYER. 209 


forever with every person who enters heaven. 
New asking, new receiving, new seeking, new 
finding, new knocking, and new opening will ever 
be going on, rendering the joys, the uses, and the 
delights of heaven ever new, ever fresh, and ever 
increasing. 

' “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, 
and whose hope the Lord is: for he shall be like 
a tree planted by the waters and spreadeth out her 
roots by the river . . . her leaf shall be green 
and shall not be hurt in the year of drought, 
neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” JEREMIAH 
VEL; 65, Oe 


14 


DISCOURSE XV. 
THE CHURCH. 
‘* Behold the kingdom of God is within you.”—Luxe xvu. 21. 


Tue kingdom of God is the Church. Its king 
is God’s Word: Its location is the human mind: 
Its field of action, human society: Its laws, the 
commandments: Its elements, goods and truths: 
Its life, charity: Its power, faith: Its business, 
doing good: Its endowments, freedom and ration- 
ality: Its form, God’s image: Its members, all 
who love God and the neighbor : Its destiny, eter- 
nal life, angelic happiness, perpetual use, and 
heavenly progression forever. This is the Church. 

The establishment of this Church is the cre- 
ation of man. For the elements of the Church 
in man are what make hima man. The Church, 
therefore, is a human mind, or a society of 
minds, in true order; or of minds who are 
approaching true order by being regenerated. 
Therefore, whether we say man or the Church, it 
spiritually means the same thing. For goods and 
truths, received and loved, make us men, by giv- 


(210) 


THE CHURCH. 211 


ing us the image of God —the Divine Man, the 
heavenly Father. Hence, in losing all goods and 
truths from our affections, we cease to be either 
men or the Church, and are said to be destroyed, 
or dead in sin; the true human life is gone. We 
are then inhuman. Man’s true creation, there- 
fore, is the willing reception of truths and goods 
from the Lord. The affectionate reception of 
these elements of life is what is meant by God’s 
breathing into man the breath of lives, and man’s 
becoming a living soul. The breath which God 
breathes is the spirit of goods and truths. This 
spirit, affectionately received, brings with it the 
substance of life; as man receives and loves it, he 
is spiritually created or regenerated. And this 
spirit comes in the written Word of God; for 
the words which God speaks are spirit and life. 
They are received into the will and understanding 
of man as he sees the truths of the Word, yields 
his will to the Divine law through faith and re- 
pentance, and obeys the law till he loves it. This 
is what makes him a true man, and a portion of the 
Church of God. 

Lhe holy Word, in the spiritual sense, is a his- 
tory of the church or of humanity in all its various 
shades and states, from the infancy of our race, 
in the Garden of Eden, to their full manhood in the 
New Jerusalem. In this history, the Church pre- 
sents five distinct features. And each of these fea- 


212 THE CHURCH. 


tures has a great variety of parts or minor forms. 
But in this discourse we can only glance at the 
five leading features—the Adamic, the Noatic, the 
Jewish, the Christian, and the New Jerusalem. 

- The Adamic state of the Church was celestial, 
having love as its governing quality. The human 
race had been progressively created, and brought 
up into the celestial state. The spiritual sense 
of the first two chapters of Genesis shows the pro- 
cess through which men became celestial beings, 
by establishing in them the kingdom of heaven in 
its inmost and purest quality, as the leading spring 
of action. They were with their heavenly Father. 
They acted from His sphere, and according to his 
will. They looked synthetically down from higher 
things into lower, and they understood what natural 
things meant or corresponded to. They read the 
book of Nature in spiritual light, and saw the re- 
lation between natural and spiritual things. They 
were in the heaven of their mind or in their inter- 
nal man, and acted from it. And the earth of their 
mind, or their external man, was in true order, car- 
rying out perfectly the will of the internal mind. 
Thus it was that God, “in the beginning,” created 
the heaven and the earth, or the internal and the ex- 
ternal minds of men, and all was very good. And the 
instruction, given in the spiritual sense, is applic- 
able to men, in all ages, who are in states to receive 
it. It isthe only way celestial men can be made. 


THE CHURCH. 213 


The phrase, “in the beginning,” is as applicable 
to one period of time as another. ‘There was no 
beginning with God, but there is a beginning with 
everything that is created; and, as it regards the 
thing itself, it is created in the beginning. Thus 
we see the Church fresh from the hands of its 
Creator, in the first paradise of life, before the 
“fall.” But it was the Church only in its infancy. 
We read in it the innocent, artless, infantile char- 
acter of the race of that age. The people were 
simple, open, sincere, affectionate, and true. 
‘They knew and felt no wrong. The will-prin- 
ciple, as in children, ruled. And the will being 
right, they felt right, and therefore they saw and 
acted right. 

But, in the process of time, through successive 
generations and the abuse of their freedom, they 
fell into evil, as explained in the third discourse of 
this series. And they continued to decline lower 
and lower, until they became nearly blind to all 
truths, and immersed in falses, denoted by the 
deluge. 

The full time had now come for establishing 
another feature of the Church. The will of the 
people had become depraved, and their under- 
standing darkened. The heavenly Father there- 
fore mercifully interposed, by a system of instruc-- 
tions, whereby all, who could be reached in their 
freedom, might be brought together as a family or 


214 | THE CHURCH. 


church called Noah. The doctrines or rules of 
life which the Lord laid down for the instruction 
and government of this people, were called the 
Ark. The establishment of these doctrines in 
their minds, was called the building of the ark. 
And the bringing of the living creatures into the 
ark, was the bringing of all their thoughts and 
feelings under the doctrines and rules laid down by 
the Lord. Thus they were preserved from destruc- 
tion. Here we have the spiritual. feature of the 
Church, in which the truth governs. This is the sec- 
ond distinct feature of the Lord’s Church on earth. 
In the first — the celestial — goodness ruled ; they 
acted from the heart, because they loved to do 
good. But in the second —the spiritual — truth 
ruled ; they acted from the head, because they 
saw that they ought to do good. In the spiritual, 
the love of truth was uppermost; in the celestial, 
the love of good. 

This second feature of the Church being spiritual, 
it is declared that Noah planted a vineyard, which 
denotes that the people of this Church cultivated 
their minds by the propagation of truths. But in 
the process of time Noah, or this people, fell in 
love with their vineyard instead of with God, who 
gave it; and they became drunken with the men- 
tal wine of their own raising. Or, in other words, 
they took to themselves the merits of the vine- 
yard, considered the truths their own wisdom, and 


THE CHURCH. 215 


became intoxicated with the errors of selfishness. 
Thus the second state of the Church was lost, and 
man sunk into naturalism. Noah, like Adam, ate 
of the forbidden tree —the tree of his own wis- 
dom —and thus became wise in his own eyes. 
Men had now become so low that the Lord could 

no longer reach them, without rites and ceremonies 
in accordance with correspondences, and_ finally 
with the written commandments given in a start- 
ling manner on Mount Sinai. Thus He established 
the Jewish feature of the Church on the peremptory 
law of obedience. It was simply a representative 
church, without either charity or true faith; a 
ehurch of works, in which men were to fear God 
and keep His commandments. They had become 
entirely natural. They had none but the most 
vague ideas of the spiritual world, or of the life 
after death. They looked only to temporal re- 
wards and punishments. But so long as they 
performed their rites and ceremonies, and kept 
the commandments out of reverence and respect 
for God and His laws, they received spiritual life, 
and could finally be prepared for heaven. But 
when, in time, they lost that reverence and respect, 
and performed their duties entirely from selfish 
motives, that their vines and fig-trees might yield 
their fruit, and they avoid the locust and cater-- 
pillar, they fell into the lowest state of perverted 


216 THE CHURCH. 


humanity ; denoted by whited sepulchres, stiff- 
necked people, generation of vipers, hypocrites. 

We have now traced the decline of humanity in 
its process from the celestial down to the spir- 
itual, and thence to the natural; and, indeed, to 
where the human race could be no longer reached 
in their freedom, without the coming of the Lord 
in the flesh. The fall was now completed. Hu- 
manity had gone down to the very verge of com- 
plete destruction. Here the Lord assumed human 
nature in the flesh, and established the Christian 
Church, as described in the fourth and fifth dis- 
courses of this series. Herein He brought life 
and immortality to light; taught of regeneration, 
resurrection, judgment, and the future life. 

But He told His disciples that there would be 
still another dispensation of Divine Truth; that 
He should come again and establish the New Jeru- 
salem. And He gave them the Apocalypse, which 
is aclear and distinct prophecy of the passing away 
of that state of the Church and the coming of a 
new one. And in the twenty-fourth chapter of 
Matthew He gives, symbolically and prophetically, 
the states of tribulation through which the Chris- 
tian Church would pass before His coming, — such 
as divisions, persecutions, wars, pestilences, earth- 
quakes, and famines, until the sun of Righteousness 
in their minds would be darkened, and the moon 
of Faith would not give her light, and the stars 


a 


THE CHURCH. 217 


of true knowledge would ‘fall from their mental ~~ 


heaven, — that is, until they were in doubts and 
darkness what to believe. And who can look 
through the present state of the Christian world, 
‘in all its various sects and conflicting aspects, from 
the gross Mormonism of ignorant Joe Smith up 
to the views of the learned Doctors who are now 
representing the Holy Word of Light and Life as 
in the shades of error and contradiction — who, 
-I say, can look at this picture and not see this 
prophecy being fulfilled? Well may the Lord 
have said, “Except those days should be short- 
ened there should no flesh be saved.” 

When the Lord left His disciples and went into 
the spiritual world, He had given to the Christian 
Church ull the wisdom that it could bear. They 
were natural people, with but little spirituality. 
He knew that they could not then receive the spir- 
itual sense of the Word, and the science of cor- 
respondence. He said, “I have many things to 
say to you, but ye cannot bear them now.” But 
He knew also that the time would come when men 
on earth would have so far advanced in natural 
science and knowledge, as to reach that rational 
state of free inquiry in which the world now is, 
and when men, with proper instructions, could 
begin to look through the world of effects to the 
world of causes, and learn to read the Word of 
God in the spiritual sense. And He knew that 


218 THE CHURCH. 


He could then make a second coming in the spir- 
itual sense of His Word, and establish His Church 
in new light and in a higher order of life. There- 
fore He gave, in Revelation, .a clear and full 
prophecy of this coming. And that prophecy is 
this day being fulfilled. Every individual, who 
rationally reads the Word in the spiritual sense, 
knowsit. And every person who understands and 
receives the true doctrines of the Trinity, Atone- 
ment, Fall, Regeneration, Resurrection, and Judg- 
ment, but who has not learned to read the Word 
in the spiritual sense, even he sees that the 
Lord is making “all things new ” in theology. 
This new state of the Church is symbolized by 
the “Holy City coming down from God out of 
heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her hus- 
band.” By this city is meant a pure system of 
doctrines upon the nature and character of God, 
and His laws, and of man and his duties. <A city 
is a proper symbol of the doctrines of the Word, 
because it is used for the indwelling, comfort, 
intercourse, instruction, protection, support and 
happiness of its inhabitants. And true doctrines, 
lived in, perform all these uses for the soul. The 
twelve foundations of this city are all natural 
truths, which are the basis of spiritual truths. 
The literal truths of the Word, though they have 
been lost sight of as to doctrines, are restored as 
the foundations of the city. When, therefore, 


THE CHURCH. 219 


from the spiritual light of the Word, they are 
clearly presented to the understanding, they strike 
the mind that rationally sees them as unques- 
tionably true. All the doctrines appear harmo- 
nious and beautiful. This is because all natural 
truths correspond to spiritual truths. 

The gates of the city are introductory truths 
denoted by pearls, which not only signify things 
scientific because they are from the sea, but also 
refer to the Lord, who is “The Pearl of great 
price” and “the Door” of heaven. The twelve 
gates, therefore, signify all knowledges of what is 
good and true by which man is introduced into 
the Church. And as the pearl is a defence in the 
oyster against what would destroy it, so the gates 
of pearl denote truths which distinguish life from 
death, and teach that we must shut out from the 
mind what is evil and false, as we enter the Holy 
City. And this is done by regarding what is 
taught by the three gates, which men enter on 
either of the four sides of the city. For three is 
a full number denoting all, because the three Di- 
vine Essentials, — Love, Wisdom, and Power, — 
are all there is of God. Hence we can enter only 
by the united action of charity, faith, and works. 
But, by faithfully regarding these three principles, 
men may enter on the east side when their love 
of good is strong, or on the west side when that 
love is feeble, or on the south side when the 


220 THE CHURCH. 


light of truth is clear, or on the north side when 
that light is obscure. The gates of the New Jeru- 
salem are never shut to man while he lives. And 
whether he has little light or much, if he rightly 
uses that light he will enter into the city. But 
the truth must be obeyed. Our head, our heart, 
and our hand must be in the work. We must 
have good as well as truth, and we must do our 
duty. We must pass the three gates, so as to 
think right, feel right, and act right. Therefore 
the city is entered only by regeneration. Nothing 
can enter that “worketh abomination or maketh a 
lie.” Our entrance, therefore, is gradual, and only 
as our evils are put away. How, then, do we 
enter? By overcoming our evils. What do we 
find? The Tree of Life. “To him that over- 
cometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life 
which is in the midst of the Paradise of God,” 
saith the Lord. 

Here we are again, with the Adamites of old, 
in the Paradise of God, eating of the Tree of 
Life in the midst of the garden of the mind. 
But the Tree of Life is here mentioned as having 
leaves as well as fruits. “And the leaves of the 
Tree were for the healing of the nations.” These 
leaves are the new intellectual truths which open 
to us the Holy Word, and show us the nature of 
our sin-sickness, and how we are to be healed. 
There were no healing leaves mentioned upon the 


THE CHURCH. 22y 


first Tree of Life, for there was nobody sick. All 
had health and life; their minds were open to 
truths from the Lord, by intuitive influx, and the 
fruit of the Tree was all that they néeded. 

We have now taken a summary glance at the 
five distinct features of the Church, or of the five 
peculiarly marked states of humanity in the spir- 
itual history of our race, as definitely recorded in 
the Holy Word. Let us now glance, for a mo- 
ment, at the remarkable order of the succession 
of these states of the Church in the fall and rise of 
humanity. In the Adamic Church love or charity 
was the dominant element. They did right be- 
eause they felé it to be right. In the Noatic Charh 
the will was depraved, and was separated from the 
understanding. Therefore truth or faith was the 
dominant element. Their wills had to submit to 
the dictates of faith. They had to enter the ark 
or live in the doctrines. They did right because 
they saw it to be right. But in the Jewish Church 
the will was depraved and the understanding dark- 
ened. ‘They had neither charity nor true faith. 
Their dominant element was works. They did 
right because they were commanded, and were 
afraid to do otherwise. Here we have a trine in 
the states of the Church. The Lord led the Adamie 
Church by charity, the Noatic by faith, and the 
Jewish by works. And when works proved in- 
efficient, and man was about to perish, the Lord 


222 THE CHURCH. 


assumed our nature and established a Church, 
wherein truth led to goodness. Faith was the 
leading element of the Christian Church, with 
charity for itsdife. This put the Christian Church 
on a level with the Noatic. 

But the province of the New Jerusalem is to 
bring the Church up to the plane of the Adamic, 
when love will be the predominant element re- 
taining faith and works. For Charity, Faith, and 
Works are the three great elements of the Church 
~ embracing the Love, the Wisdom, and the Power 
of God. No church can exist without them. 
When charity rules, the Church is in the celestial 
state ; when faith rules, it is in the spiritual state ; 
and when works rule, it is in the natural state. 
Now, in the New Jerusalem, the Church is to pos- 
sess all its elements in true order. All that there 
ever has been of the true Church will be herein 
embodied. For nothing of the Church has ever 
been lost. The good people of the Adamic, the 
Noatic, the Jewish, and the Christian states of the 
Church are all in the heavens; and the elements 
of the church are their life. The real fact is, the 
church of God has never fallen. It was the people 
that fell away from the Church. Goodness, truth, 
and use cannot fall. They are divine and eternal 
principles. Therefore it is an appearance only 
that the Church of God becomes depraved and 
falls. The depravity is not the Church. 


THE CHURCH. 223 


When we look at the Church in its divided ele- 
ments, we can see that there has been but one 
Church on the earth. This Church has existed un- 
der various states and dispensations, developing 
in man its various qualities and uses. Only that 
which was good, true and useful in the people has 
been the Church. Their falses and evils have 
been something else. The Church commenced 
with the creation of man; and by means of it, 
humanity has, by Divine influence, been devel- 
oped from infancy up to manhood. Thus, the 
Adamic state was the Church in its infancy ; the 
Noatic state, the Church in its childhood; the 
Jewish state represented the Church in its youth ; 
the Christian state was the Church in its early 
manhood, and the New Jerusalem state will be the 
Church in its age and maturity. In this state 
the seals of the holy Word are loosed, and the 
Book is opened to the minds of men, and their 
minds are opened to the Word; so that men can 
learn from God the laws of the spiritual world, 
and the nature and character of God, and of their 
own spiritual being and qualities. Herein all the 
prophecies of the Word are to be fulfilled. The 
canons of Scripture point no further. 

‘This, then, is to be the full and crowning state - 
of the Church. Herein, humanity is to be re- 
stored to the primeval order of the race, with this 


224 THE CHURCH. 


difference : then it was an innocent, inexperienced, 
confiding child, loving goodness supremely, know- 
ing no sin, and seeing intuitively, by the Lord’s 
wisdom in the clear light of analogy, the higher 
laws of creation and providence ; but now, it is to 
be as an educated man, knowing good from evil, 
loving supremely the good, and despising the evil ; 
and seeing rationally and scientifically, by the 
same Divine wisdom, in the same light of analogy, 
the same higher laws of creation and: providence 5 
and then, in perfect freedom, loving and walking 
in those laws. 

From all this we may see that, when humanity 
thus comes into order on this earth, there will be 
no more fall of man. For man first fell from the 
want of experience and of a knowledge of evil. 
But now, the appalling consequences of evil are 
before the eyes of all, and are bitterly experienced | 
by every individual. And all its dreadful qualities 
are depicted in the holy Word in the most striking 
colors. And, knowing the consequences, the world 
of mankind, when restored to true order, will no 
more fall into sin. For it is prophetically declared 
that then “there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
pain; for the former things are passed away”; 
and, “Behold, I make all things new ”—every doc- 
trine of the Word, filled with new light and life. 


THE CHURCH. 225 


Glorious and happy day, when all shall know the 


Lord, from the least to the greatest, when every 
knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father ! | 


55 


4 


DISCOURSE XVI. 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


‘* And He came into all the country about Jordan, preaching 
the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”—LuxKp 
Il. 3. 


** Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His 
blood, ye have no life in you.”—Joun vi. 53. 


Our Heavenly Father, who knows all our wants 
and weaknesses, has mercifully provided Baptism 
and the Holy Supper as a means for the more 
ready and efficient removal of our evils, and the 
reception of goods in their stead. And He has 
definitely commanded us to receive these ordi- 
nances for this purpose. But there are many in- 
telligent persons who disregard this command. 
They cannot believe that God has limited salva- 
tion to those who receive these ordinances. And 
in this they are right. Men may receive them, 
and be lost; and, without receiving them, they 
may be saved. But what, then, becomes of the 
command? Does God give us useless commands ? 
Certainly not. But some men are in doubt on the 
ground that there are many things said in the Bi- 

(226) 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 227 


ble which we cannot understand; that we do not 
certainly know what God means by these ordi- 
nances. He tells us that baptism is of the heart 
_by the spirit; and that the bread and wine are 
His flesh and blood; and we, therefore, do not 
feel sure about it. In all this, men act consist- 
ently, according to their states. They are ra- 
tional beings. And, at this age of reason, God 
desires them to use that reason in religious mat- 
ters, as well as in others. 

But the time has now come in the history of 
our race, when the spiritual sense of the Word 
may be seen, and the strange things of that Word 
explained, and the dark things brought to light. 
Clear reasons can, therefore, now be assigned for 
the use of baptism and the Holy Supper; and also 
why God has commanded their observance. And 
it is very useful for men to have clear and distinct 
views of these ordinances and of their importance. 
For, surely, what God has commanded for our 
good must be matter of the highest interest. 

Now, by baptism is spiritually meant regener- 
ation. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved,” means, he that rationally receives the 
truth, and is regenerated, shall be good and happy. 
The application of water to the body, therefore, 
is not baptism. It is only the sign of baptism. 
And because it is a true sign, it has taken the 
name. It is a true sign, because water corres- 


228 BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


ponds to the literal truth of the commandments, 
by the use of which the soul must be cleansed. 
But though the application of water in baptism 
does not cleanse the soul, yet it teaches, most em- 
phatically, by perfect analogy, that, as the body 
is cleansed by the use of water, so the soul, to 
which the body corresponds, must be cleansed by 
the truth, to which the water corresponds. The 
truth of the commandments must be applied to 
the understanding and will, through repentance, 
faith and obedience, in dependence upon the 
Lord, or the soul cannot be cleansed. 


Now when this baptismal light of the Word is 


seen and felt in its spirit and life, what else could 
impress so deeply and solemnly upon the human 
mind the true course of regeneration and its in- 
finite importance, as the ordinance of baptism? 
The very thought, in its spirituality, carries a 
thrill of joy and a prayer for success to the soul 
of every one who truly sees and feels the light 
when present at a baptism. With this view of 
the ordinance, how can any one doubt its utility ? 
The performance of certain ceremonies in the 
civil societies of men, for the purpose of fixing 
certain truths or duties indelibly in the mind, has 
been practised from time immemorial, and the use 
has ever been felt and acknowledgcd. If, then, a 
use is thus gained in the institutions of men, how 
much more may we look for it from an ordinance 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 229 


established and commanded by God Himself—an | 


ordinance, too, which is in perfect correspondences 
so as to connect spiritual things with natural, and 
therefore the affections with the outward duties of 
life! Indeed, we have here a strong rational 
ground for the use of baptism; a ground upon 
which we may enter into its uses with the utmost 
confidence that God will deliver us from our evils, 
by keeping us in the way of His commandments, 
if we look to Him, and strive to be led and gov- 
erned by the spirit of His laws. 

Again, when we consider that the Lord Jesus 
Christ has set us the example; that He was bap- 
tized because He had an assumed depraved nature 
from Mary to put off, before His human, from the 
Father within, could be put on and freed from its 
assumed impurities, and thus be glorified or shine 
with the glory which it had with the Father before 
the world was—and when we further consider that 
He has commanded us to follow Him in the regen- 
eration by putting off our evils, how can we any 
longer doubt the use of this duty? 

And now, as it seems to be clearly certain that 
baptism is a useful ordinance, let us next inquire, 
Who are proper persons to receive it? In the 
establishment of the Christian Church, the people 
were baptized in large numbers. The command- 
ment was for all men to repent and be baptized 
for the remission of sins. Now, if they were 


230 BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


commanded to repent and be baptized, how shall 
we understand it? Were they to be baptized be- 
fore they had commenced the regenerate life, or 
afterwards? We say either before or during 
regeneration. But if a person is being regener- 
ated, why baptize him? To strengthen him, and 
advance the work. For God works by means, 
and baptism is one of the means He uses for our 
purification. It should be remembered that bap- 
tism was administered by the apostles for the re- 
mission of sins, or as a sign that evils must be 
removed from the heart. It was therefore called 
the baptism of repentance ; for there is no remit- 
ting a sin without repentance; because, if we 
are not sorry for our sins, we shall keep them. 
The apostle Peter plainly teaches that baptism 
may precede regeneration. For he said to the 
multitude that rejected Christ: “Repent and be 
baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus 
Christ, for the remission of sins,” or as a means 
for their remission, “and ye shall receive the gift 
of the Holy Spirit.” Now, it is by the Holy 
Spirit that we are regenerated. And if we are 
baptized in order that we may receive the Holy 
Spirit, why then, of course, baptism precedes re- 
generation. And in the Acts it is written that, 
“When the apostles, who were at Jerusalem, 
heard that Samaria had received the Word of 
God, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 231 


when they were come down, prayed for them that 
they might receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet He 
had fallen upon none of them, only they were 
baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Here 
they had been baptized, but had not received the 
Holy Spirit. But upon the visit of Peter and 
John, we are informed that they did receive the 
Holy Spirit. 

Here much importance is laid upon the recep- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. And well there may be, 
for without that reception nothing heavenly is 
accomplished. But what is it to receive the 
Holy Spirit? There has been much darkness on 
this subject. And yet there should be no marvel 
about it, for it is simply to yield our hearts to the 
truth of the commandments, and commence the 
regenerate life by shunning all evils as sins against 
God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth; it 
is the power or influence of the truth on the 
heart. It is the operative energy of Jesus Christ, 
or of God’s wisdom and love on the thoughts and 
feelings of man, through the revealed laws of 
God. When, by the light of the truth, a person 
rationally sees the deceitfulness and depravity of 
his heart, and the evils which such depravity 
brings upon the human race, and feels sorrowful 
for such evils, and is anxious to have them re- 
moved from the hearts of men, and he looks 
prayerfully to the Lord for help, then it is that the 


> 


we 


232 BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


truth enters his own heart and begins to operate 
there; and he begins to love it and obey it, and 
to oppose his selfish nature with it, and thus to re- 
sist all temptations; when a person is exercised 
in this way, he is receiving the Holy Spirit. 
There is nothing dark about it, when understood. 
Every love of right, and of doing right, in humble 
obedience to ean commands, is by the operation 
of the Spirit. 

But we are also taught that baptism may be re- 
ceived after a person has received the Holy Spirit, 
or commenced the regenerate life. For this was 
actually the case with some of the Gentiles. Pe- 
ter says of them: “Can any one forbid water, 
that these should not be baptized, who have re- 
ceived the Holy Spirit as well as we?” “And he 
commanded them to be baptized in the name of 
the Lord.” Indeed, it is never too late to be bap- 
tized while we live in this world, for the cleansing 
is not completed in this life, in this wicked age. 
And how far soever advanced a person may be in 
regeneration, the humble reception of baptism, 
because God has commanded it, will surely receive - 
its blessing. It is a new submission of the heart 
to God in obedience to an important command, 
and therefore it must place the, person in a state 
for further reception of the Spirit; for the declar- 
ation is, that if we are thus baptized, we shall re- 
ceive the gift of the Spirit. And a person should 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 233 


not suppose that, because he has already received 

the spirit of truth, he cannot receive more of it; 
for it is only by a further supply of it that we can 
advance further. We can no more extend our 
progress heavenward with the goods we have, than 
we could extend the building of a house without 
more materials than we had already put in it. 
Everything good and true is given us by the Lord 
according to our states of reception; and each 
succeeding state, that is open to receive, will be 
supplied with what is needed to prepare it for the 
next advance. Thus we may see the necessity of 
a constant dependence upon the Lord, and faithful 
obedience to His laws. 

Again, much has been said in the world upon 
the exclusive importance of believers’ baptism ; as 
though the faith of the candidate were indispen- 
sably necessary toa proper baptism. But we may 
see, from the Scripture, that it is proper to ad- 
minister it either before or after a person believes. 
For as the reception of the Spirit often follows 
baptism, so also must faith ; because all true faith 
comes with the reception of the Spirit.. A person 
cannot have true faith who has not in his heart the 
spirit of truth; for it is by the heart that we be- 
lieve unto salvation. A man may have the truth 
in his understanding and see that it is his duty to 
obey it, before he really loves it, and has thereby 
living faith. He may:see that God has com- 


234 BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


manded him to be baptized, and may submit to the 
requirement, and thereby come into a state to re- 
ceive the Spirit, and thence true faith. For 
truth loved gives faith; and more truth loved 
gives more faith. This is why faith is called the 
gift of God. It comes with the Holy Spirit 
through repentance. Therefore it is, that we are 
commanded to “repent and believe.” For no per- 
son can have real faith until he has repented. 
Therefore we are not commanded to believe and 
repent; but to repent and believe. And as bap- 
tism is called the baptism of repentance for the 
remission of sins—or in order that sins may be 
remitted — therefore we may see that it may be 
administered to a person before he has faith. 
Who, then, are proper persons to be baptized ? 
The apostle James says : “ Repent and.be baptized, 
every one of you, for the remission of sins, and 
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Our 
Lord says, through Mark: “John did baptize in 
_ the wilderness avd preach the baptism of repent- 
ance for the remission of sins; ; and there went out 
unto him ail the land of Judea, and ther y of Jeru- 
salem, and were ail baptized confessing their sins.” 
Now these were all baptized before regeneration, 
or the reception of the Spirit; for John said to 
them : “There cometh one after me, mightier than 
I, the latchet of whose shoes Iam not worthy to 
stoop down and unloose. I indeed baptize you 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 20 


with water; but He shall baptize you with the 
Holy Spirit.” And again, in Luke, it is said that 
the multitude came forth to be baptized, including 
lawyers, publicans, soldiers, and all the people. 
And we read, in Acts, of the baptism of three 
thousand in a day. 

Now, into what were they baptized? This is 
an important question, and its true answer should 
be distinctly understood; for the words said — 
the thoughts and feelings used — at baptism, are 
spiritual things, and are therefore what connect 
the ordinance with the spiritual world. The 
simple sound or noise of the words, without the 
ideas, would be nothing at all, and the character 
of the ideas must determine the quality of the 
baptism. Thus, a baptism into the name of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as three distinct 
Persons, saving man by means of a vicarious 
sacrifice, in which the Son bore the penalty of 
our sins, would have an entirely different spiritual 
character from that into the name of God in one 
Person. And a baptism into the name of God in 
one Person, excluding Jesus Christ, would have 
an essentially different spiritual character from 
that which included Him. Therefore jt is em- 
phatically worthy of note that, though the Lord’s 
parting command to His disciples was that they 
should baptize into the name of the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet they all baptized 


236 BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. This 
they did, because they understood that in Him 
dwelt “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” 
and that therefore baptism into His name was into 
that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for He 
Himself was God. And so anxious were they 
that the Church should be founded on this rock, 
and be strong in the faith that Jesus Christ was 
the one only living and true God, that they bap- 
tized solely into His name. And one instance is 
recorded of re-baptism, because the persons had 
erroneous views of what baptism was. Thus, 
when Paul came to Ephesus, he said unto certain 
disciples, “ Have ye received the Holy Spirit since 
ye were baptized?” And they said unto Him, 
* We have not so much as heard whether there be 
any Holy Spirit.” And He said unto them, 
*Unto what, then, were ye baptized?” And 
they said, “Unto John's baptism.” Then said 
Paul, “John verily did baptize with the baptism 
of repentance; saying unto the people that they 
should believe on Him which should come after 
him; that is, Jesus Christ. When they heard 
this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord 
Jesus.” 

Here, it seems, that baptism had its true spir- 
itual validity from proper ideas concerning God, 
in the minds of the people engaged in it. And it 
is worthy of note that the same ideas which gave 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 237 


to baptism its true spiritual element, at the Lord’s 
first coming, in the establishment of the Christian 
Church, are received now, at His second coming, 
in the establishment of the New Jerusalem; but 
with this difference: the spiritual sense of the 
Word now throws additional light upon the fact 
that Jesus Christ is God, and also upon the ordi- 
nance of baptism, as well as upon all the doctrines 
of the Word. We therefore baptize into the name 
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as 
being the love, the wisdom, and the power of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

Baptism is, therefore, a Divine ordinance for 
the salvation of men;.and should be received 
prayerfully, with a desire to be cleansed from all 
evils. And all persons who have this desire, 
acknowledging the Sacred Scriptures as the Word 
of God, and Jesus Christ as God manifest, are 
proper persons to be baptized into the New Jeru- 
salem. And infants and children may be baptized, 
with the intention of the parents that they be 
taught to believe in Jesus Christ as God, in the 
Bible as His Word, and in the keeping of the 
commandments as the way to heaven. 

The Holy Supper is also an important ordinance. 
God has commanded its observance. And though 
persons may not, at first, see what bread and wine 
have to do with one's salvation, yet they may 


238 BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


consider that God has something to do with it. 
Now, God has established this sacrament as a 
symbol of what builds up the soul. While, there- 
fore, baptism denotes its purification, the Supper 
signifies what feeds it and gives it life. There is 
no more beautiful symbol of goodness, upon which 
the soul must feed or perish, than bread, upon 
which the body must feed or perish. And wine 
denotes the living spiritual truth from God, which 
performs the same use to the soul which blood 
does to the body. By means of this spiritual 
truth, freely received, the goodness of God is 
seen and felt by man; and it is distributed, from 
the will, through all the affections, thoughts, and 
emotions of the soul, nourishing the whole spirit- 
ual man — the same as the blood, dispensed from 
the heart, carries the bread we eat to all parts of 
the body, supplying the whole physical system. 
And as bread and wine, for the body, are per- 
fect correspondences of goods and truths for the 
soul, and thus bear to goods and truths the sure 
relation which effects bear to causes, who, that 
sees this, can question the use of this Divine 
sacrament, when it is humbly received in obe- 
dience to God? ‘These two ordinances, therefore, 
embrace and signify everything that is needful for 
the establishment of the Church or of the kingdom 


of heaven in man. Baptism denotes the putting 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 239 


away of everything evil and false, and the Supper 
the receiving of everything good and true. The 
former denotes the removal of hell from the soul, 
and the latter the reception of heaven. 

These are the great and glorious results which 
these ordinances are given to accomplish, or to 
assist men in accomplishing. They are offered 
freely to everybody, without money and without 
price. And though our sins be as scarlet, they 
shall be white as snow. And the broad invitation 
says to all: “Come. Whosoever will, let him 
take the water of life freely. Repent and be bap- 
tized every one of you, for the remission of sins, 
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” 
It is a way of salvation, then, open for sinners, — 
the vilest and most depraved sinners. 

Therefore, how futile and groundless is the ex- 
cuse which people generally make, saying: * We 
are not good enough to be baptized;” when the 
real question is, Are we bad enough to need re- 
generation, in order that we may be honest, vir- 
tuous, and happy? And do we desire to receive 
this regeneration, and are we willing to try to 
obtain it? If so, let us delay not to use the means 
and take the course which our Heavenly Father 
has mercifully provided expressly for this purpose. 
We like to see men feel their unworthiness, 
Even the angels feel that. But a sense of one’s 


240 BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 


unworthiness is no argument in favor of delay 
of obedience. On the other hand, it is an evi- 
dence against it. We should rather count the 
dangers of delay. 

Are we afraid we shall not live right, and shall 
thus bring odium upon the Church? Such a sen- 
sitive regard for the honor and standing of the 
Church is a bright omen that God will sustain us 
and keep us in the way ; for when we have obeyed 
the command, by receiving baptism, that sensitive 
fear will become a prayer to God to keep us from 
all evil. 

God desires the salvation of all men, and has 
instituted these ordinances as a means of assisting 
them in the work of putting off the Old Man, 
with his deeds, and putting on the New Man, in 
spirit and life. And though these ordinances 
themselves do not give salvation, but are only 
means for promoting it, and consequently a bad 
person, with evil intentions, may receive them to 
no good end, yet, I have no doubt, they have been 
the means of strengthening and holding up many 
a feeble pilgrim to the “happy land,” who other- 
wise would have fallen by the way, and that the 
salvation of all who sincerely comply with these 
commands of our Heavenly Father must be much 
facilitated thereby ; for what the Most High God 
ordains for the good of mankind, must bring its 


dh eae 
st ies a Diet Bead a ecaee ree 


BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER. 241 


heavenly reward to all who faithfully comply with ~ 
its requirements. 

“He that hath My commandments, and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth Me; and My Father will 
love him; and We will come unto him, and make 
Our abode with him.” 


16 


DISCOURSE XVITI: 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


“‘T in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect 
in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, 
and are loved them, as Thou has loved Me.”—Joun xvit. 23. 


TueEse are the words of the Lord addressed to 
the Father, while His assumed human nature was 
in the process of glorification; while He was put- 
ting off what was finite and impure, and putting 
on om was Divine, and thus becoming one with 
the Father. In this state He felt a seer sympa- 
thy with Mis disciples, and desired that they might 
be purified and made perfect in one; and might 
thus feel conscious that the Father loved feet 
and that He and the Father were one, and were 
in them as their life and light. “I in them and 
Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in 
one.” He had just been speaking of His own pu- 
rification, saying : “ For their sakes I sanctify My- 
self, that they also may be sanctified through the 
truth.” By His own sanctification, He was open- 
ing the way for theirs. He wanted them all to be 
one, united in love, that the world might be- 


(242) 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 243 


lieve that the Father — the Divine love — had sent , 


Him —the Divine truth —a light into the world, 
that all men through Him might believe. And He 
told His followers that if they would convince the 
world, they must be a united people, united to 
God and to one another by the element of love. 
“That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art 
in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one 
in us; that the world may believe that Thou hast 
sent Me.” And, to bring the matter home to 
them, He said: “ By this shall all men know that 
ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to 
another.” Thus speaks the Lord to us also. 

Let us, then, investigate this grand theme, upon 
which the true happiness of men so effectually 
hangs. Let us try to understand clearly what 
ee laws of spiritual affinity are, that we may 
know the best way to bring them into ourselves 
and others. 

Now, although the members of heaven are in- 
dividually distinct beings, yet they are severally 
parts of a whole. And it is from a true union of 
the parts that the full happiness of the whole or’ 
of the parts consists. And this must be the case 
on earth, though the union here is less perfect and 
full. The uniting element of this union on earth 
is charity. Its aphers of action is faith; and its 
rule of action is the Divine law. The ground of 
this charity is goodness, the spirit of this faith is. 


244 TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


truth; and they live and grow by good works. 
_ This charity is commenced in the will by means 
of the truth from the Word, enabling us first to 
see rationally our selfishness as evil, and then to 
resist its action, and overcome it by kindness, 
looking to the Lord for help. Therefore, faith 
in the Divine Word as Truth from the Lord, 
filled with Divine good, and containing power to 
save to the uttermost all who will yield to the 
spirit of that truth and keep the commandments, 
is the foundation of all heavenly union. Upon 
this Rock rests the Church, and, indeed, the heay- 
ens. Upon this faith in the Lord we stand; and 
by charity we are united; and by good works we 
progress in the heavenly way, God working in us 
to will and to do, while we work. ‘This faith, 
then, is truth in the understanding united to good 
in the will, and working by love to the neighbor. 
Without this union carried out in good works, all 
faith is dead, and there can be no regeneration. 
Every truth has good in it as its life. And as 
the will embraces and loves the truth,. it feels the 
life of the good, and loves from this good. ‘This 
good, glowing in the heart, is charity, the copart- 
ner of faith. They live by mutually doing good 
works. Faith sees that the works ought to be 
done, Charity wants to do them, and they move 
on together, the Faith working by Love. Thus 
Faith and Charity live from each other, and are 


Er 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 245 


one in life and action. We may, therefore, know 
whether we have true faith or not, by the state of 
our affections — by whether we love to do works 
of charity or not. And we may also know whether 
our society is strong and permanent. For with- 
out charity — without true love one to another — 
any society is, at any time, liable to fall to pieces. 
But, with charity, their union is true and perpet- 
ual; it is spiritual and eternal. 

Now, in order to understand this matter clearly, 
we must see that, in man’s fallen state, the ele- 
ments of his understanding are separated from 
those of the will, so that he can think one way 
and will another; he can say what he knows to be 
false. The reason of this is because the truth can 
enter the understanding, while the heart is op- 
posed to what it teaches; showing that the heart 
is at variance with what the head sees to be right, 
or that the will is at variance with the truth. 
From this, we see that unless the heart yields to 
the truth and receives it, it will certainly falsify 
it. The depraved will will becloud the under- 
standing and pervert the truth to selfish purposes, 
holding faith as a mere matter of thought. And 
we also see that though a man may have the truth 
of faith in his understanding without the good of. 
it in the will, and though that truth is filled with 
good, which in the will would be charity, yet that 
man cannot feel and enjoy that good, because it is 


246 TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


an element of the will, and he has not got it there. 
Now, until the good of that truth has been — 
brought into the will by repentance of his evils | 
and humble obedience to the truth till he loves it, 
he cannot be the real owner of either the truth or 
the good. Nor has he, as his own, either living 
faith or charity. Nor are his will and understand- — 
ing united. 

If he sees that it is wrong to steal, lie and mur- 
der, he has a provisional faith which will lead him 
to a living faith and to his God, if he will yield 
his heart to the truth and obey it sincerely. For 
then the good of that faith will become the charity 
of his will, and the truth now flowing warm from — 
good in the heart, will be the living light of the 
understanding. And as this good and truth, in 
themselves, are one and inseparable, and as the 
good is now in the will and the truth in the un- 
derstanding, therefore the will and the understand- 
ing are now united. And the mind is no longer 
a house completely divided against itself. Faith 
and charity are becoming fixed principles of the 
soul, harmonizing and putting in order the whole 
household. 

From all this we may see that living faith and 
charity are one; that, separated, they are dead. 
Either of them alone is no bond of union between 
men. Because, what cannot unite an individual 
mind and bring it into oneness and harmony in 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 247 


itself, cannot unite a society of minds. For, as 
truth i the understanding can do nothing heavenly 
without the united exercise of good in the will, so 
neither can good in the will, without the action 
of truth in the understanding. Charity wants to 
do good to others, and to unite itself to the good 
of other minds. But, in order to do this, it must 
have a sphere of truth of its own to actin. Feel- 
ings cannot act without thoughts. Thoughts can- 
not act without moving in a sphere of either truth 
or falsity. The understanding is the eye of the 
mind. ‘ruth is the proper light for that -eye. 
Without the eye of the understanding, and the 
light of truth, charity in the will would not know 
which way to go, and would confer its favors on 
unworthy objects, and thus it would often uphold 
and encourage vices. And so falsity in the un- 
derstanding would not be any proper sphere for 
charity to act in. It would send it off in wrong 
directions and on evil missions. Thus a true 
church must have true faith and true doctrines or 
rules of action. And there must be a love for 
those doctrines and laws, and they must be kept, or 
disorder and division, contention and ill-will, will 
everywhere spring up. Good affections are born 
in the sphere of the truth; and they must have 
the truth as the guide of their action, that they 
may be properly developed and directed. For the 
good of the affections is soft and yielding, and 


248 TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


may be moulded into various forms, while the 
truth is decided and will not swerve from the line 
of duty, when working in union with good. We 
may see this from correspondence. For though 
truth is of many varieties and is signified by 
water, or wine, or light, according to the use to 
which it is applied; yet, in its firmness and sta- 
bility, it is denoted by roeks, or iron, or precious 
stones, or swords, or spears, or sure foundations. 
While good or love, which is so kind, gentle, soft 
and pliable, is denoted by oil, so smooth, healing 
and soothing, and by gold, so ductile, malleable 
and yielding. Now the lamp denotes the truth in 
its firmness; the oil in the lamp denotes the good 
that is in the truth; the burning of the oil de- 
notes good in action, which is love; and the light 
which goes forth denotes the heavenly instructions 
which this good and truth are giving to mankind. 
We should, therefore, all have our lamps trimmed 
and burning. 

The Divine Word of our heavenly Father is 
filled with goods and truths of all varieties, which 
are designed to bring all men together — individ- 
uals, communities and nations. For goods are 
designed for men’s wills, and truths for their un- 
derstandings. And when the will and the under- 
standing of an individual mind become united, 
that mind has a certain reciprocal connection with 
every other mind so united. For all goods and 


ee 


a 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 249 


truths are in harmony, and form a one; with God _ 
as the centre and source. Nothing can bring men 
together but harmony of thoughts and feelings. 
This harmony can exist only where there is a 
ruling love in each mind for the goods and truths 
of the Word. To obtain this love, men must cul- 
tivate an affection for the Divine source and quality 
of those goods and truths. To cultivate that affec- 
tion, they must have true and reasonable ideas of 
the nature and character of that source. For dis- 
similarity of views concerning God’s character and 
qualities must give diversity of affections and dis- 
cordant ideas. 

Now I know that it hardly seems possible to the 
natural mind, who looks around upon the great 
variety of sects and creeds, conflicting in senti- 
ment, and purporting to be drawn from the Bible, 
that these peoples or their posterity can ever, 
from the teachings of that Bible, be brought to 
see eye to eye. But it is declared in prophecy, 
that when the Lord shall call again Zion, or estab- 
lish the New Jerusalem, the watchmen shall so 
see. Thus it is not on account of any discrep- 
ancies in the holy Word that men disagree. It 
is either from the selfish and disorderly states of 
their minds, or from erroneous education concern- 
ing the Word and the Lord. Every man sees the 
doctrines of the Word from the state of his heart. 
This state is the stand-point from which he views 


250 TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


them, whether he reached it from education, or 
from habits of life, or from both. And if that 
state or stand-point is not a central one where he 
sees in the current of the Divine light or in the 
line of its rays, it will not present a correct view of 
the Lord, or of the doctrines of the Word. And 
the further he stands, in his thoughts and feelings, 
from the true position, the more erroneous the 
view. 

But new spiritual and new literal light is now 
beaming from the holy Word, precisely adapted 
to the inquiring wants of this age. This light is 
reasonable and convincing; and men may so re- 
ceive it and change their position. And when all 
men, sects and nations, shall so see and receive 
it, and thus stand where they can rationally see 
by the spiritual light of the Word that the Lord 
Jesus Christ is God manifest ; and understand His 
Divine qualities to be infinite Love, Wisdom and 
Power; and that the cultivation of love to these 
qualities in the keeping of His laws is the only 
way to true happiness and peace; then, as they 
yield their hearts to the truth, they will learn to 
see all the doctrines in their true light, and will 
not disagree about them. And as they then re- 
sist their evils, and keep the commandments, they 
will become more and more charitable and true, 
and the Word will appear more and more clear 
and bright. The reason why they will agree in 


oat ek ee 


eT en) Ve See a ee 


ee ee es 
ee ee ee 


LS a RE ee Se Se et eS 


ee ee a a eye en ate ee oa Oe 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 251 


the doctrines of the Word is, because they will — 
then see them as they are, and will learn to love 
them; and when the doctrines are so seen and 
loved, they will clearly evince their truth. 

When we see the true qualities and character 
of the Lord, we have the leading truth, the creat 
key to all the doctrines. We can then clearly sce 
the character of man, the origin of evil, and the 
way to remove it. For all truths are parts of a 
vast spiritual whole, of which God is the light and 
life. Therefore with the great diversity of views 
which men have of God’s character, who can won- 
der that there is so much variety of religious views 
in the world? Indeed, it would be a great wonder 
if it were otherwise. For different views of God’s 
nature and character must, of necessity, give a 
diversity of views of His Word and its doctrines. 
For, with erroneous views of God’s qualities, men 
must embrace false doctrines. But with true ideas 
of the Lord, men would have but one ‘general 
- stand-point to reckon from. MHence these true 
ideas would give them similarity of thoughts ; and 
as they should learn to love in God the same qual- 
ities, they would have similarity of feelings. And 
when that God is brought to their minds in the 
person and lovely character of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, they will have a distinct and tangible ob- 
ject within their mental embrace, around whom 
their affections can cluster; and they will be no 


o52 TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


longer lost in the darkness of a formless, incon- 
ceivable, unknown object of worship. And when 
they see in the goodness of the Lord, the Father ; 
in His Wisdom, the Son; and in His Power, the 
Holy Spirit, they will then understand what is 
meant, everywhere in the Word, by these terms ; 
and then the true light of the doctrines will beam 
from the entire Word, reconciling all its parts. 
Men will then rest on the Foundation Rock of 
ages — the Rock Christ Jesus. And they will see 
that other foundation hath no man laid, nor can 
lay. And they will also rationally see that there 
is no other name given under heaven among men, 
whereby they can be saved. Because that name 
or quality is seen to be Goodness, Truth, and Use ; 
and that these principles man receives from the 
Lord, through the exercise of Faith, Charity, and 
Works. 

Now, all who rationally think and reflect upon 
this subject must see that when men embrace these 
views, and love these heavenly qualities of the 
Lord, they must become good, peaceable and 
happy ; and that they must see eye to eye; that, in 
the very nature of the case, it could not possibly be 
otherwise. And it is not possible for men to con- 
ceive of any other ground upon which they can be 
brought together. For they can come together 
only from principles of affinity in their wills and 
understandings. And these principles must be 


_— 
—— oe 


BO aa ee i a a Nd a = 


FS a 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 253 


good and true, substantial and permanent, un- 
changeable and eternal, always to be depended 
upon; and they must be seen to come from the 


Almighty God. 


Now, between all good and true principles, this 
law of aflinity actually exists, because they are 
living principles from God, and are therefore mem- 
bers one of another. The essence of this affinity is 
love, and it draws all souls together who possess 
the elements. And as the principles are from God, 
they draw all souls who have them, supremely to 
God and mutually to one another; not blindly, 
but by the exercise of free wills and understand- 
ings, whose rational and voluntary faculties are 
intelligently and gladly engaged. 

But it should not be forgotten that all the power 
is in the living goods and truths freely given and 
freely received from the Lord for our use, and for 
the happiness and peace of mankind. Thus we 
may see that faith in the Lord and in His holy 
Word, and charity towards men, must form a one 
in the souls of men on earth, before we can have 
a community in true order and peace. Thus must 
men come together, not upon the narrow and 
sandy foundation of self-love, but upon the be- | 
nevolent and solid ground of universal love to 
God and the neighbor. And it is only in this way 
that men can be truly governed. For if they do 


not look up to one common Father and Ruler, and 


254 TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


take His counsel and act from it, men will want 
to rule in their own wisdom and way, and hence 
must arise discords and dissatisfaction. 

Now when the world has been long enough tried 
with the wars, earthquakes, pestilences and fam- 
ines, mental and physical, which it is declared in 
prophecy would attend the advent of the New Je- 
rusalem, the people will become more generally 
aroused to the necessity of a higher state of order. 
They will then be more ready to seek, in the 
spiritual light of the Word, for an understanding 
of the causes of all calamities, and how they may 
be prevented, and how a proper state of peace 
and order may be established. And as the true 
light comes, convincing their reason, they will re- 
pent and yield to the commandments of the Lord ; 
and thus His kingdom will come and His will be 
done in earth as it is done in heaven. 

In the midst of all these distressing trials of 
the age, it is our duty, who are receiving the light, 
to keep these great truths ever before our minds, 
and the minds of inquirers, that all, as far as pos- 
sible, may have an opportunity to understand the 
laws of our being, so that our minds may be open 
to the great interests of humanity, and we become 
able properly to perform our duty in the noble 
work for which we were created. For though few 
the members, and apparently feeble the influence, 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 255 


of those who acknowledge the New Jerusalem as 
how coming down from God out of heaven, yet 
within her apparent weakness there lie concealed 
the mighty elements which are to revolutionize and 
regenerate the world. And those elements are 
how everywhere being felt, though the great mass 
know not what it means. And all who have these 
Divine elements in heart and mind, should hold 
them in readiness to go forth, on their glorious 
mission, just as fast as the spiritual fermentation 
of this eventful age shall prepare the agitated world 
to seek for rest in the living God, through humble 
obedience to His laws. For as the door of the 
Holy City is always open, that whosoever will 
may come and partake of the water of life freely, 
so it is the imperative duty of all who have the 
light to let it shine before men, that others may 
see the pearly gates, and learn the way to enter in. 

The light of this City presents the doctrines of 
the holy Word so distinctly and rationally, that 
they can be clearly understood and readily applied 
to lite. But to keep the light of these doctrines 
shining, so that men will be forcibly struck by 
their beauty and use, they must be so lived that 
men will not only see in their advocates a just and 
merciful life, but also be taught that heavenly hap- 
piness requires such a life, as a means of entering 
and enjoying the Holy City. For we enter that 


4 


256 TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 


city only as the city enters us. Because the doc- 
trines which constitute that city all hang upon and 
teach love to God and the neighbor; and though 
the city is first seen in the understanding, yet it 
actually enters us only as it comes into the will 
through a life according to its teachings. For 
nothing is really within us as our own, till it passes 
through the rational mind and takes hold on the 
heart, and is truly loved. And by the city’s being 
said to be pure gold like unto clear glass, we are 
taught, by correspondence, that the doctrines are 
unalloyed goods and truths. And these qualities 
can enter the will only as evils and falses are re- 
moved. But as the city is entering our heart and 
becoming the light and joy of the heaven of our 
mind, it must descend into our outward life; it 
must come down from our God out of our heaven, 
or internal mind, into the words and actions of our 
earth or external mind, and become the laws and 
rules of life in all our dealings and intercourse with 
men. | 
Thus will its light be seen and its power be felt 


through us, as the Lord’s true disciples, and the_ 


prayer of the text will be answered in all who thus 
receive the Lord, at this His second coming, for 
the establishment of His kingdom. Of all such 
the Lord can now truly say to the Father within 
Him, ‘‘I in them and Thou in Me, that they may 


TRUE DISCIPLESHIP. 257 


be made perfect in one; and that the world may - 
know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them 
as Thou hast loved Me.” ‘* By this shall all men 
know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one 
to another.” 


17 


DISCOURSE  XVILL 


THE ContTRAST: 


A BRIEF GLANCE AT THE CHANGE OF MIND FROM 
THE TRI-PERSONAL SYSTEM OF FAITH TO THAT 
OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. 


‘And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery.” — 
Rev. xvit. 5. 


‘“‘The Mystery of God should be finished.” — Rav. x. 7. 
‘* Behold I make all things new.” — Rev. xxt. 5. 


THE Book of Revelation is a prophecy concern- 
ing the Christian world, in the various religious 
hes through which it would pass after the 
Toute ascension, until, in His second coming, he 
should bring all things into order. Berore the 
time of this second coming it is declared in the 
text that there would be, upon the forehead of the 
Christian world, a name written, Mystery. Thus 
teaching that darkness would then becloud the 
mind of the religious world upon spiritual things. 
But, by the second coming of the Lord, as the 
spiritual light of the Word, the text daciares that 
the mystery of God should be finished, and that 
the Lord would make all things New. This work 


(258) 


% 


ee ie eT 


THE CONTRAST. 259 


is now going on, and will be continued until fully 
accomplished. 

I propose to give, in this lecture, the reasons 
why I believe that Mystery has been written upon 
the forehead of the Church, and is now being re- 
moved, and that God will make all things in 
theology new. And, in doing this, I shall pre- 
sent you with some of the states and changes of 
my own mind, without any allusion to what others 
now believe. I feel a sacred respect for every 
sincerely religious person, of whatever sect or 
name. I know that new light is coming into the 
world; that it is entering, more or less, the relin-s 
ious sphere of all denominations ; and that it is not 
for any man to judge the inmost faith and state of 
another. And we bid the heavenly light God- 
speed into all hearts. 

But of my own past views and states I havea 
distinct knowledge, and feel at liberty to present 
them, in support of the text. For mystery was 
indeed written upon my forehead, covering all the 
doctrines of the Word, when the spiritual light of 
that Word first gleamed through that mystery, 
revealing the glories of the Word in doctrines 
reasonable and beautiful, and assuring me that the 
mystery of God should be finished, and all things 
be made new. 

I was hopefully religious in early life, and, at 
twenty-two, joined the Episcopal Church, and after- 


260 THE CONTRAST. 


wards studied Theology, with a view of entering 
the ministry. But over the entire system of re- 
ligion which I studied was indelibly written, 
Mystery. And the more I studied, the darker it 
became. The idea that God was a Being without 
body or parts, existing in three distinct persons, 
of one substance, power and eternity, one. person 
of whom having a body, was a cloud too dense for 
light to pass through into my thoughts. ‘How the 
Son could be God and have a body, and God be 
without body or parts, was a great mystery. 
And how the Son could be at the right hand of 
the Father, who was omnipresent and boundless, 
was another mystery. Or how a being without 
body or parts could have a right hand, was another 
mystery. . Thus the object of my worship was lost 
in darkness. My theological advisers could give 
me no light; aud I was obliged to give up the idea 
of preaching, as I could not promise to teach what 
I could not understand and feel sure was true. 
But this darkness was joyously removed by the 
spiritual sense of the Word, revealing doctrines 
reasonable, beautiful and practical, and of the 
truth of which I have never since had a doubt. 
The Trinity in God I now saw to be in three essen- 
tial elements — Love, Wisdom, and Power, or 
Good, Truth, and Force. These three elements I 
saw to be spiritual substance, and the very person 
of God. In the good, I saw the Father element ; 


THE CONTRAST. 261 


in the truth, I saw the Son element; and in the ~ 


power, the Holy Spirit element; answering to the 
will, the understanding, and the energy in a man. 
I could see that this triune God, in one person, 
would be the Creator of the universe, eternally 
and unchangeably the same. I could see how the 
“ Word” was in the beginning “with God” and 
“was God,” because the Word is Divine truth, 
and God is Divine good. I could see how truth 
is the Son of God, because God, or Good, speaks 
it. Good always gives birth to the truth. I could 
see why “all things were made by ” the Son, and 
that “ without Hine was not anything made that 
was made,” because good, by means of its truth, 
creates ; as a man’s will, by means of his under- 
standing, performs his work. I could see that 
these three Divine elements might dwell “in all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily” in Jesus 
Christ. I could conceive of their assuming a fallen 
human nature, and a material body from the Vir- 
gin Mary, for the purpose of bringing the Divine 
elements down to man and teaching him, by pre- 
cept and example, what they are, and how to 
receive and live them. Thus, in- view of the 
Trinity in God, I found the mystery being finished, 
and God making all things new. 

And over the doctrine of the atonement, as I 
was taught it, there also rested a most dense 
mystery. How He, whose tender mercies are 


262 THE CONTRAST. 


over all His works, could attach a penalty of end- 
less suffering to the transgression of His law, 
which Adam and all his posterity would endure 
forever, unless some innocent being should suffer 
it for them, my soul could never conceive. If it 
were right for the transgressor to suffer, I could 
not see why it would not be wrong for him not to 
suffer. But when the spiritual sense of the Word 


came, I found that this doctrine had no foun- 


dation whatever in Scripture ; that God requires no 
other satisfaction for sin than that men should 
break off from it by righteousness; that it is no- 
where taught in Scripture that the Saviour suffered 
the penalty to man’s sins. God assumed our sin- 
ful nature in order to bring down to our sinful 
states the Divine elements, so that we could re- 
ceive them, and thereby break off from sin, and 
thus be atoned to God. And while He was doing 
this by precept and example before the eyes of 
men, He was crucifying and putting off the de- 
praved nature received from Mary, and putting on 
the Divine nature from the Father within, until 
all from Mary was put off, so that He had that 
“Glory which” He “had with the Father before 
the world was”; and thus was “TyorAnur,?— 
Gop witH us. And here, too, I found the mys- 
tery, which beclouded my ideas of the atonement, 
being finished; and the Lord making all things 
new in this doctrine. 


ae OS ee ee eee 


i 


THE CONTRAST. 263 


And so when I considered the fall of man, noth- — * 


ing but mystery was before my eyes. Why the 
Lord should put in man’s garden a tree to be de- 
sired to make one wise, and then forbid the eat- 
ing of it, upon the penalty of eternal-damnation, 
was a profound mystery. And what the tempta- 
tion was, in which a serpent could induce a woman 
to eat of the fruit of a tree, was another mystery. 
Indeed, what the fall was in itself, and how and 
why it took place, was shrouded in darkness. But - 
the spiritual light of the Word soon cleared away 
the mystery. For I then saw that the garden 
which they were to dress and keep was the human 
mind; to be kept free from the brambles and 
briers of vice. The Tree of Life was the Lord 
as their life; the fruits of this tree were goods and 
truths, of which they might freely eat. The tree 
of knowledge of good and evil was their own self- 
hood. They were to look to the Lord and go His 
way, and not to themselves, and go their own 
way. But, in process of time, they turned away 
from the Lord to themselves, became wise in their 
own eyes, und loved themselves best. Thus they 
ate of the knowledge of evil until it seemed good. 
They were not to know evil. That knowledge 
was the forbidden fruit. They had no such knowl- 
edge when created. They had a selfhood which 
made them free to do as they pleased. Without 
this freedom, they would not have been men, but 


264 THE CONTRAST. 


machines. And through the abuse of this free- 
dom, they, by habit, learned to know and love 
evil, when they might have avoided it. This was 
the “Fall.” The serpent was the appetites of 
body and mind; declared good, when created ; but 
by habit they became vitiated and selfish. These 
improper demands of the appetites first tainted 
the will or Eve principle of the mind, and then 
the understanding or Adam principle; and thus 
the whole mind fell into sin. Thus the new light 
soon began to finish the mystery of the Fall, and 
make all things new therein. 

Again, over my idea of regeneration, the same 
dark name Mystery was written. I had been 
taught that regeneration was an instantaneous 
work, whereby the soul, in a moment, stood jus- 
tified, and the penalty of its sins remitted, through 
the gift of faith, while the person was still a de- 
praved sinner. Over all this there was profound 
darkness. Howa man could stand justified and 
pardoned while his heart remained selfish and dia- 
bolical, I could not see. A justified sinner seemed 
to me to be a direct contradiction. But in the 
new light, I learned that regeneration was a pro- 
gressive work, accomplished by a warfare against 
our evil and depraved desires, until they were 
conquered and removed. It was the undoing of 
what the fall had done; the putting out of us the 
depravity and evils which the fall had brought in. 


THE CONTRAST. 265 


It was the restoration of the soul from vice to vir-- 
tue, from falsity to truth, from evil to good. And ~ 
as the serpent was foremost in leading us into de- 
generation, so the foremost work in regeneration 
is to conquer the depraved influences of the ser- 
pent; to keep down the selfish, headstrong appe- 
tites; the corrupt, world-loving desires of the 
heart. This work is what is called bruising the 
serpent’s head.. At the time of the fa ul, the 
Saviour was announced as He that would bruise 
the head of the serpent which beguiled the first 
people. Therefore the Lord assumed of Mary 
our fallen nature with the depraved serpent in it. 
And He was consequently tempted in all points 
like as we are. He first bruised the serpent’s 
head there, and thus put off the depravity, and 
put on Divinity. He now offers us His Gospel — 
and the power of His Spirit, that we, too, may 
bruise the serpent’s head in our hearts; and thus 
follow Him in the regeneration. And as the love 
of self and the world are overcome in us, love to 
God and the neighbor will take their place; so 
that, when the work is completed, we shall have a 
clean heart and a right spirit. This is regenera- 
tion. And the way is now luminous and bright. 
The mystery is being finished, and the Lord is 
making all things new. 

Again, over the doctrines of the Resurrection, 
the Second Coming of the Lord, and the Judg- 


266 THE CONTRAST. 


ment, there was, in my mind, a name written in 
large capitals, Mystery. These three great events, 
I supposed, would take place at the end of the 
world. But the resurrection of the natural body 
was covered with dense mystery. How material 
substances can be transmuted into spiritual was a 
dark and unanswerable question. And how the 
patriarchs and prophets, whose cast-off bodies 
have been incorporated with thousands of other 
human bodies, can each have his own identical sub- 
stance again, was another mystery. And what 
those worthies now are, and how they exist without 
spiritual bodies and forms, was another mystery. 
But the new light from the Word soon showed 
that there was no such doctrines taught; that we 
have here a spiritual body within the natural, and 
that the natural body will be put off at death, 
never to be resumed; and that, though the leav- 
ing of the natural body might be called a resur- 
rection, yet the real resurrection is a rising from 
spiritual death to spiritual life by regeneration ; 
and that this is the great resurrection which is to 
take place at the Lord’s second coming. For at 
this coming, when all things are to be made new, 
the resurrection or regeneration from sin is to go 
on with the people in the flesh, till all are risen 
from the death of sin, to a life of righteousness ; 
until the watchmen see eye to eye and all know 
the Lord. And thus, upon the doctrine of the 


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THE CONTRAST. 267 


resurrection, the mystery was finished, and I could 
contemplate my departed friends, as in substan- 
_ tial spiritual bodies, enjoying the delights of all 
their senses, in a much higher and purer order of 
things than gross matter could ever reach. And 
so the Lord said to me, Behold I make all things 
new in this doctrine. 

But the mystery over the second coming of the 
_ Lord was ofa still deeper shade. For how the Lord, 
who said the “ Father that is within Me, He doeth 
the works, I and My Father are One, He that 
hath seen Me hath seen the Father ”— how He and 
the Father, as one omnipresent God, could be 
separating and coming together again, was a 
thought totally dark and contradictory. Because 
separation would not only be proof against their 
unity, but also against their infinity; for if they 
could be separated they could not be omnipresent, 
and therefore would not be infinite. Nor could 
the omnipresent God come and go, as to man, 
with regard to space. Thus, dark was the mys- 
tery. But, in the spiritual sense, I saw that God, 
as to space, was everywhere, filling everything 
with life. And I also saw that the Lord as the 
Word, the Truth, might be absent from man’s un- 
derstanding ; and therefore that He could come, 
as the truth, to that mind, without passing through 
space. And as the Father is Divine Good and 
the Son Divine Truth, I could see that, in a mind 


268 THE CONTRAST. 


having the truth without being good, the Father 
and the Son would, to that mind, be as separated. 
For the man would have the truth without loving | 
and doing it, and thus would not possess, as his 
own, the good of that truth. True, the good 
would be in the truth as its very substance, for 
they cannot be separated as to themselves. And 
the man having the truth in his understanding 
without the good in his will, could, by yielding 
his will to the requirements of that truth and obey- 
ing it until he loved it, receive into his will the 
good of that truth. Then the good and the truth 
would be united, on man’s part, and give him 
heaven. They are always united on God’s part. 
I here saw what is meant, in the Word, by the ap- 
parent separation of the Father and the Son, by 
the Father’s sending His Son into the world, and 
the Son’s returning to the Father. God, as Fa- 
ther, Son, and Spirit, is omnipresent. All that 
is said of the coming and going, the separation 
and union again, of these elements, has relation 
simply to their operations in human minds. They 
are inseparably one in themselves. But man may 
see the truth without having its spirit; he may — 
yield to it, and thus receive and use the spirit; 
and, by perseverance, he may receive the good, 
and thus possess the three in peace. Thus, through 
the clouds of the literal sense of the Word, in my 
mind, the Lord, in the spiritual sense, made His 


THE CONTRAST. 269 


second coming, removing the mystery, and making. 
all things new. a | 

And, concerning the J udgment, dark was the 
mystery. When I contemplated the vast assem- 
blage of all the people that ever had been or would 
be, and imagined them collected at the last day, 
after the Lord, in Sovereign majesty, had blown 
out the sun, and rolled the heavens together as a 
scroll and burned them up; and in this dark, blank 
universe, was looking down from His throne, with 
stern decision upon the immense mass standing in 
breathless silence, waiting the fiat of their eternal 
destiny, my anxious heart has asked in vain for a 
reason for all this. Were the patriarchs, proph- 
ets, and apostles, to be called out of heaven and 
judged and sent back again? or had they never 
been there? Or what or where had they been, 
since they left this world, without bodies or forms ? 
These were painful questions, filled with the very 
mystery of mysteries. But how soon the mystery 
fied when I saw that the spiritual truth of the 
Word was the Lord Himself, coming into my 
mind to judge me; that He was then. summoning 
before Him all the principles of my nature, the 
good and the bad, the sheep and the goats, that I 
might decide which I would retain and which I 
would give up. I found that I was living in the 
great judgment day; that this last judgment com- 
menced at the opening of the Word to the spirit- 


270 THE CONTRAST. 


ual sense, and would be continued as long as there 
are people to be judged ; that the judgment is the 
operation of the truth in the mind that is judged ; 
that when the Lord as the truth is absent from 
men they are in darkness, and do not know Him 
nor themselves; that when He comes to men He 
comes as the truth, and the truth always comes for 
judgment. The Lord came the first time as “The 
Truth,” and said, “For judgment Iam come into 
the world. . . . Now is the judgment of this 
world.” The Lord has now come for the last time 
to men. The truth will never again be absent 
from the people of this earth. He has come to 
establish His universal reign, and in due time 
will bring all to see eye to eye; and the earth will 
endure forever, the nursery of heaven. When 
regeneration commences in a man, the truth has 
commenced the judgment of his heart, and if he 
progress, the judgment will go on and be finished 
in the world of spirits after he puts off the body. 
Then he is ready for heaven. These were glorious 
truths to my dark mind, and I thought the Lord 
had well said of oye second So dn “ Behold I 
make all things new.’ 

And when I considered the subject of the 
spiritual world, all was mystery. I had no idea 
of heaven but a place of rest and worship; nor 
of hell, but a place of outer darkness, with 
wailing and gnashing of teeth. And where 


ee Se Se ee eS a | 


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sarin So 


Ra ae SY Se 


THE CONTRAST. 271 


they were located, imagination was teo feeble to 
suggest the faintest, idea. I had no distinct 
thought of any scenery in either place; nor of 
any substance that was tangible to my reason. 
Indeed, the whole spiritual world was one stu- 
pendous mystery. But the spiritual truth of the 
Word is the light of the spiritual world, and opens 
to us the laws of that world, shows us where it is 
and what are its substances and qualities. It en- 
ables us to see, by analogy, “The invisible things 
of God, from the creation of the world, through 
the things that are made; even His eternal power 
and Godhead.” We see, by this light, that hea- 
ven and hell are in the hearts of men, in this 
world as well as the other; that heaven is a happy 
state of the mind resulting from the love of good ; 
and hell is a miserable state of mind resulting 
from the love of evil. Thus it is the state of the 
people, not the place, that makes either heaven or 
hell. Wherever the good are assembled, there is 
heaven in society; and wherever the evil are, 
there is hell. Thus the mystery that has be- 
clouded the location and the scenery of the spir- 
itual world, is passing away, and the Lord is 
making all things new. 

_ Inall this brief glance we see that the mystery of 
God is not only being finished in all the doctrines 
of the Word; but, what is of great importance, all 
the doctrines are rendered practical. We can not 


272 THE CONTRAST. 


only understand them, but we can, by living them, 
bring them into our hearts and make them a part 
_ of ourselves. By this means we shall be purified 
from all our evils, be filled with the kingdom of 
heaven, and thus be prepared to enter and enjoy 
its society. 

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath 
visited and redeemed His people, and hath. raised 
up a mighty salvation for us in the house of His 
servant David.” 


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